Weekend All Things Considered

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

We end this hour with an update on the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Here's what we know. In total, 28 people are confirmed dead, including the gunman. And NPR has confirmed his identity. He was Adam Lanza, 20 years old. That's according to federal law enforcement officials. Earlier today, his brother Ryan was taken in for questioning. Ryan Lanza is not believed to be involved in the shootings.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Audie Cornish talks to Craig Lemoult about the latest in the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Growing up in Utah, Ross Owen watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on television every Sunday with his family.

"It was almost like watching a rock concert, and I thought, 'Oh, I'd love to do that,' " he says.

But by the time Owen was old enough to join the choir, he was no longer a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; he had been excommunicated after he came out as gay.

Fifty years ago, on Dec. 14, 1962, reporters gathered for a press briefing at NASA headquarters and heard an unearthly sound: radio signals being beamed back by a spacecraft flying within 22,000 miles of Venus.

The Mariner 2 mission to Venus was the first time any spacecraft had ever gone to another planet.

These days, vivid photographs showing scenes from all around the solar system are so ubiquitous that people might easily forget how mysterious our planetary neighbors used to be.

The world mourned the death this week of Indian maestro Ravi Shankar, whose name became synonymous with the sitar. Tributes eulogized Shankar as the great connector of the East and West who'd hobnobbed with The Beatles and collaborated with violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin. Less has been said about the roots of the music he spent a lifetime perfecting and innovating.