All Things Considered

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigned in Ohio on Tuesday, where his focus was on coal and energy policy.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Now, that Mitt Romney has chosen his running mate, Vice President Joe Biden knows who the competition is. And Biden has been talking about Paul Ryan on the campaign trail.

VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The very plans the congressman voted for and promoted for 12 years and the governor supported put America's greatness in jeopardy. How do they think we got in this spot in the first place? What do they think happened? As my little youngest granddaughter would say, was it Casper the Ghost, Pop?

As part of the NPR Cities Project, we're exploring some "gee-whiz" questions about how cities work. Melissa Block talks to Gideon Berger, Fellowship Director for the Urban Land Institute, on the street in Washington, D.C.'s Chinatown. They talk about the trickiness of timing traffic lights

After Japan's Fukushima disaster last year, Germany announced a groundbreaking energy plan: It would phase out all of its domestic nuclear power in a decade and make a transition to safer, carbon neutral energy.

The goal is to have solar, wind and other renewables account for nearly 40 percent of the energy for Europe's largest economy in a decade, and 80 percent by 2050.

Actress Julie Delpy first beguiled American audiences in 1995, playing the enigmatic French student in Richard Linklater's film Before Sunrise. Ever since, Delpy has enjoyed life on the Hollywood fringe, preferring indie projects where she can help shape her roles.

She co-wrote the Oscar-nominated script to Linklater's sequel, Before Sunset, and has also begun directing her own projects. For her latest, 2 Days in New York, she directed, produced and helped write the script.