In this week's episode of the show and podcast Invisibilia , we explore what happens when you discover a part of yourself that is very different than who you think you are. And Freud was so wrong about our dreams. In NPR's Shots blog, Jon Hamilton explains that scientists now think that our dreams have nothing to do with repressed desires. Instead, it looks like they help us process memories and gain insight. They can be surprisingly mundane. And funny. Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
When You Talk In Your Sleep, Are You Talking To Your Secret Self?
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Man Accused Of Making Millions Of Robocalls Faces Biggest-Ever FCC Fine
Federal regulators on Thursday said they've identified "the perpetrator of one of the largest ... illegal robocalling campaigns" they have ever investigated. The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a $120 million fine for a Miami resident said to be single-handedly responsible for almost 97 million robocalls over just the last three months of 2016. Officials say Adrian Abramovich auto-dialed hundreds of millions of phone calls to landlines and cellphones in the U.S. and Canada and at one point even overwhelmed an emergency medical paging service. Making prerecorded telemarketing phone calls to people without their prior consent is prohibited . So is making telemarketing calls to emergency phone lines and deliberately falsifying caller ID to disguise identity with the intent to harm or defraud consumers. According to the FCC, the robocalls made by Abramovich through his ambiguously named companies (Marketing Strategy Leaders or Marketing Leaders) would show up "spoofed" as if
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Brendan Dassey Of 'Making A Murderer' Wins Federal Appeals Court Case
A federal appeals court has upheld a lower court ruling that the confession of Brendan Dassey, whose case was part of the Netflix documentary series Making a Murderer , was involuntary. Dassey was found guilty of helping his uncle kill a young woman in 2005, and has been held in a Wisconsin prison. The case against Dassey was constructed largely on that confession, in which he stated that he helped to rape and kill a woman named Teresa Halbach, as The Two-Way has reported . A three-judge panel from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its majority opinion that Dassey should be released unless the state of Wisconsin decides to retry him within 90 days or appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the state is weighing its options. "We anticipate seeking review by the entire 7th Circuit or the United States Supreme Court and hope that today's erroneous decision will be reversed," Johnny Koremenos, director of communications and public affairs for the Wisconsin Department of Justice
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Mourners Remember Otto Warmbier At Hometown Funeral
Throngs of mourners paid their final respects to Otto Warmbier Thursday at a public funeral at the high school he attended near Cincinnati. Just four years ago, Warmbier graduated from the school as the salutatorian. The 22-year-old University of Virginia student was detained in North Korea for 17 months and died on Monday, shortly after he returned to the United States in a coma. "It doesn't really feel real yet," his former soccer teammate Grady Beerck said, according to The Associated Press . "He's so young, and he's been gone for so long. The impact he made is always going to last with people." Beerck described Warmbier as a "goofy kid" who would "drop anything to help his friends." An estimated 2,000 people packed Wyoming High School, in Wyoming, Ohio, with more lining the streets, CNN reports . The service took place in the arts center, which could hold only 800 people, so many more watched on screens set up in overflow rooms. Warmbier's brother, sister and friends spoke at the
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Trump Sued For Allegedly Violating Presidential Records Act
Two government watchdog groups, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive, filed a lawsuit Thursday against President Trump and the Executive Office of the President. The complaint alleges that White House staffers' widely reported use of encrypted messaging apps, such as Signal and Confide, for internal communication violates the Presidential Records Act. In the lawsuit, the groups claim the Trump administration has "failed to adopt adequate policies and guidelines to maintain and preserve presidential records." Encrypted messaging apps automatically delete messages, which would prevent those communications from being archived. "The American people not only deserve to know how their government is making important decisions, it's the law," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement. "By deleting these records, the White House is destroying essential historical records." Presidential records are not subject to the Freedom of
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Israeli Judge Says Airlines Can't Reseat Women At Request Of Men
Renee Rabinowitz, a Holocaust survivor in her 80s, was flying from Newark, N.J., to Tel Aviv in 2015, when a flight attendant on Israel's El Al airline asked if she would be willing to change seats. An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man had said he did he not feel comfortable sitting next to her. Rabinowitz agreed to move. But afterward, she said she felt "deep humiliation" — and sued the airline in Israeli court. Jerusalem's Magistrate Court ruled Thursday in her favor, saying that asking her to change seats based on her gender was discrimination. "I'm thrilled because the judge understood the issue," Rabinowitz told The New York Times . Her lawyers are calling it a "revolutionary" decision. Rabinowitz, an Orthodox Jew, is a retired lawyer with a Ph.D. in educational psychology, according to the Times . "Despite all my accomplishments — and my age is also an accomplishment — I felt minimized," she told the newspaper. Rabinowitz was represented by the Israel Religious Action Center , the legal
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Georgia Inmates Come To Aid Of Unconscious Guard
Six inmates at Georgia's Polk County Jail came to the aid of a deputy sheriff who collapsed on the job, calling 911 with his phone and staying with him as the ambulance arrived. The inmates were on their weekly work detail on June 12, sprucing up a Polk County cemetery ahead of Father's Day, when the deputy collapsed, WXIA in Atlanta reports . "I happened to look up and I seen the officer, he was going to his knees," one inmate tells WXIA. Another inmate says the officer was already face down by the time they made it to him. "We turned him over and made sure that he was okay." One inmate took the officer's phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. Others removed his gun belt, opened his shirt and took off his vest to ready him for CPR, they said. "He was out for a minute and he wasn't really breathing," an inmate told WXIA. Emergency workers arrived and transported the deputy to the hospital. The deputy — who asked to remain anonymous — told WXIA he suffers from a chronic illness called
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Efforts Increase To Bring Health And Other Benefits To Independent Workers
The list of perks Dan Teran's company offers sounds pretty dreamy. Anyone working 120 hours a month gets employer-sponsored medical, dental and vision insurance. His company, Managed by Q, also offers a matching 401(k) retirement program, paid time off, a stock option program for all employees, and 12 weeks of paid parental leave. Those are highly unusual perks, considering most are part-time workers who work only when they're available. Also, Teran's company does janitorial, building maintenance and temporary secretarial work, where such benefits are almost unheard of. But, Teran says, he didn't want to run a business with the kind of very high client and employee turnover that can run as high as 400 percent in his industries. "In order to deliver the best service we need the best people, and to attract and retain the best people we need to be the best employer," he says. A growing number of Americans rely on gigs for income — driving a car, writing bits of code, or doing tasks for
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Could The Best Memory System Be One That Forgets?
Intuitively, we tend to think of forgetting as failure, as something gone wrong in our ability to remember. Now, Canadian neuroscientists with the University of Toronto are challenging that notion. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Neuron , they review the current research into the neurobiology of forgetting and hypothesize that our brains purposefully work to forget information in order to help us live our lives. I spoke with Blake Richards , one of the co-authors of the paper, who applies artificial intelligence theories to his study of how the brain learns. He says that in the AI world, there's something called over-fitting — a phenomenon in which a machine stores too much information, hindering its ability to behave intelligently. He hopes that greater understanding of how our brains decide what to keep and what to forget will lead to better AI systems that are able to interact with the world and make decisions in the way that we do. Interview Highlights We hear a lot
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Bill Cosby Is Planning Town Halls About Sexual Assault And The Law, Spokesman Says
Less than a week after a judge declared a mistrial in the sexual assault case against Bill Cosby, the comedian's representatives say he intends to host a series of town halls about sexual assault and the legal system. Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt told the TV show Good Day Alabama that the town halls could start as soon as next month and noted that the issues were particularly important for young athletes. The proposed talks drew immediate criticism from organizations that work with survivors of sexual assault. Wyatt said young people "need to know what they're facing when they're hanging out and partying." Here is his exchange with a WBRC Fox 6 News host: Wyatt: "Mr. Cosby wants to get back to work. We are now planning town halls, and we're going to be coming to this city sometime in July." Host: "Really? Like a town hall just to talk with people?" Wyatt: "To talk to young people. Because this is bigger than Bill Cosby. This issue can affect any young person, especially young athletes
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South Korea Tests Missile As President Speaks Of Need To 'Dominate' North
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ysU1PrdJ0 South Korean President Moon Jae-in watched his military test-fire a ballistic missile on Friday, after a string of North Korean missile tests were blamed for raising tensions on the Korean Peninsula. The military said the missile, a Hyunmoo-2 with a range of up to 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles), hit its target accurately. When Moon won South Korea's presidency last month, he was seen as likely to return to the "Sunshine Policy" of engaging with North Korea through dialogue and economic aid. But today he said "dialogue is only possible when we have a strong military, and engagement policies are only possible when we have the security capability to dominate North Korea," according to the Associated Press . The president's remarks were relayed by Blue House spokesperson Park Soo-hyun. Saying that he wanted to evaluate South Korea's missile capability for himself, Moon added that he is now reassured. Friday's missile test is the fourth of six
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'Cause For Serious Concern': Invasive Carp Caught 9 Miles From Great Lakes
A live Asian carp — an invasive fish so threatening to local U.S. ecosystems that officials have struggled to keep it out of the Great Lakes — has been caught 9 miles from Lake Michigan, beyond a system of underwater electric barriers. The silver carp, one of several species of the invasive fish, was captured below the T.J. O'Brien Lock and Dam on Thursday morning "with a grill net by a contracted commercial fisher," the Asian Carp Regional Coordinating Committee said in a statement Friday. "The silver carp was 28 inches in length and weighed approximately 8 pounds." Kevin Irons, an official with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, tells NPR that tests of the fish and its surrounding waters are now underway and further information will be released soon. "There are seven species of carps native to Asia that have been introduced to the United States," explains the ACRCC , a group composed of federal and local agencies, "but only four types that are considered a threat to the
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Judge Declares Mistrial, Again, In Cincinnati Police Shooting Case
A judge has declared a mistrial in the murder and manslaughter case against former University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing over his fatal shooting of black motorist Sam DuBose. This is the second time the case has ended in a mistrial — the jury was deadlocked in the first trial, which ended last November. "Jurors sent a note to the judge Friday morning saying they were hopelessly deadlocked after about 27 hours of deliberating," member station WVXU reported . "She sent them back to the discussion table." But then later Friday, jurors returned to say they were still unable to find consensus, after nearly 31 hours of deliberations. The fatal traffic stop happened in July 2015, when Tensing, who is white, pulled DuBose over to ask him about a missing front license plate. Their exchange lasts less than two minutes and was captured on body camera video. Tensing repeatedly asks DuBose for his driver's license. DuBose stresses that he does have a license and appears to search the
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Future Humans: How Many Of Us Will There Be?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoqnrvCES30 Planet Earth is a vast place, with humans scattered all over it. But how we're distributed is far from even. About half of the planet's 7.5 billion people live in just seven countries. China tops the list with over 1.4 billion people, while its neighbor India is catching up fast at 1.3 billion. Though far below the billion mark, the United States comes in third, with about 325 million people. Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan and Nigeria round out the top seven. Dividing the world up by continents can give a sense of where the world's population is clustered. North and South America combined have about a billion people. Africa has 1.3 billion, and Europe is at 742 million. And then there's Asia, with 4 1/2 billion people. That's more than half of the humans on Earth. How many more people will there be in the next hundred years? The United Nations estimated in a report released Wednesday that by 2100, the human population will actually stop growing.
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In North Carolina, No Is Not Always No, If The Sex Has Already Started
While college campuses struggle with consent , and when and how "no means no," a nearly 40-year-old court case in North Carolina says a person can't be charged with rape if their partner revokes consent during sex. In 1979, the Supreme Court of North Carolina ruled in State v. Way that "if the actual penetration is accomplished with the woman's consent, the accused is not guilty of rape." State Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, wants this changed. In March he introduced the "Revoke Consent For Intercourse" bill that would make it a crime for anyone who continued to "engage in intercourse after consent is withdrawn." The bill hasn't made it out of the Senate's Rules Committee. "North Carolina is the only state in U.S. where no doesn't mean no," Jackson told The Fayetteville Observer . State v. Way is drawing attention because of recent cases in the state. One woman said she agreed to sex with a man at a party in January, but changed her mind when he became violent. She reported the alleged
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WATCH: It's Been A Long Week. So Here's A Gorilla Dancing In A Pool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfS5kBGBh00 Oh sure, you could argue there are other, more important things happening in the world. And frankly, you'd be right. (For those things, by the way — which some people, in somber tones, might call news — please see here .) But sometimes, you just need to watch a big gorilla dance in a small pool. Meet Zola the gorilla of the Dallas Zoo. It's not the first time Zola, amateur dancer, has taken Internet fame for a spin . He also turned some heads back in 2011 when he was at the Calgary Zoo. But it's quite likely this is the first time his moves have been set to a famous film score of the 1980s. So, while we're at it, you'd probably better watch that, as well. Here's Zola dancing to the euphonious strains of "Maniac," from the film Flashdance . The zoo says the pool time is an "enrichment session," designed to help "enhance the environment and lives of animals, like Zola, by providing them with mental and physical stimulation to increase natural
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What The Man Who Ran Obamacare Thinks About the Republican Health Plan
Andy Slavitt understands the inner workings of the U.S. health care system better than most. From 2015 to 2017, he ran the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services . Since leaving that post in January, he's been an outspoken critic of the Republican proposals to dismantle it. Yesterday, shortly after the release of the Senate bill, he tweeted, "It's the ugly step-sibling of the House bill." And this morning his message was, "We must start over. It's too important." Slavitt spoke with All Things Considered host Kelly McEvers about the latest Republican plan, called the Better Care Reconciliation Act , and where the Affordable Care Act goes from here. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Interview Highlights Fair to say there isn't anything you like in this new plan? Well, it's hard to say that you like the uniforms of the team that's got the guns pointed at you, trying to kill you. And I don't mean to
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Shakespeare Companies Suffer Backlash After 'Julius Caesar' Controversy
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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Wisconsin Ironworker Challenges Paul Ryan For House Seat
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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Saudi Arabia And Neighboring Arab Nations Present Demands To Qatar
Copyright 2017 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
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