NPR News

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors, and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Katey Sagal, Holding Court On 'Sons Of Anarchy': The actress plays Gemma, the fierce matriarch of the biker gang in the FX series. She's best-known for playing the acerbic Peg Bundy on the long-running show Married With Children.

On Halloween night this week, millions of children tumbled into their neighborhoods dressed as Captain America, Spiderman, Batman, Bat Girl and Wonder Woman. But that night, true superheroes were at work in uniforms, not costumes.

They were firefighters, police officers, emergency workers and ordinary citizens in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and elsewhere who gave brave and extraordinary efforts to protect and rescue their families and neighbors. They risked their lives for strangers.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It's already starting to rain over northern Ohio this past weekend as the outer whirls of Hurricane Sandy approached. Just a few days before the election, people in Reminderville, the village of about 3,000, were concerned about turnout.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Trick or treat.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Trick or treat.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Hey, what's going on?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Hi.

Just two days after the U.S. presidential election, China opens the most important event in a decade on its political calendar: a transition of power. Host Scott Simon talks to NPR's Louisa Lim and Frank Langfitt in China about the upcoming 18th Party Congress.

After a major storm, ice becomes a precious commodity. Host Scott Simon talks with Joe Romano, owner of Sea Isle Ice Company in Sea Isle City, N.J., about how the company is getting ice to people in need.

The presidential candidates will be hopscotching among the handful of states that are most closely contested this weekend. President Obama begins campaigning Saturday where he left off Friday, in the all-important battleground of Ohio.

This past week has been filled with some truly tragic stories of loss and devastation in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. There are also a few stories of near misses and disasters averted. Marin Alsop, music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, fortunately has one of the latter.

Following Superstorm Sandy, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has received good grades from politicians and even some survivors of the storm. In part, that's due to lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina seven years ago.

For Staten Island resident Deb Smith, whose house was flooded by the storm surge from Sandy, FEMA has been a savior.

The last unemployment report before the election came out Friday, and the news was middling: Unemployment ticked up to 7.9 percent.

The private sector created more than 180,000 new jobs, but state and local governments resumed laying workers off. That discrepancy is part of a longer-term trend.

For a few years now, private sector employment has been growing, but since mid-2010, state and local governments have eliminated roughly half a million jobs.

For the first time since it began in 1970, the New York City Marathon will not take place.

Marathon officials and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had initially insisted that Sunday's race would go on despite the devastation caused by Sandy. But mounting opposition forced the organizers to change their minds Friday.

All week, the group that organizes the race, the New York Road Runners, kept saying the marathon would go on. But on Friday night, Road Runners CEO Mary Wittenberg made this announcement:

In New York City, the lights are coming back on, and the annual marathon has been called off. Robert Siegel talks to Joel Rose.

In New York City on Friday, the lights came on in more of Manhattan and the annual marathon was called off. Margot Adler talks to Robert Siegel.

One lasting image of Superstorm Sandy will be very sick patients being evacuated from flooded hospitals. But less visible are thousands of patients who rely on visiting nurses and home health aides for care ranging from bathing and feeding to oxygen and ventilators.

Have you heard the story that's swept the liberal blogosphere in recent days about how Mitt Romney's son Tagg is going to steal the election for his dad?

It's not true, but like all good conspiracy theories, it is based on kernels of truth.

This conspiracy centers on voting machines in Ohio, a key battleground in this election. A couple of Ohio counties use voting machines made by a company called Hart InterCivic. According to the rumor, Tagg Romney owns part of Hart. So, goes the story, Tagg Romney could fix the election.

Mario Veas spent Monday night hunkered down with his family. But he has been running ever since.

Veas runs a tree service in Willow Grove, Pa. He says his phone has been ringing nonstop because people want trees felled by the storm chopped up and cleared.

"Everybody [is] calling and they want [the job] to be done this morning," Veas says.

Earlier this week, Veas was clearing an enormous tree branch from Preethy Edamala's patio in nearby Elkins Park.

NPR's Zoe Chace made her way to Coney Island in Brooklyn this afternoon. There she found residents making line at a FEMA processing center.

Zoe spoke to DeQuan Franklin and Roberta Johnson, who wanted to apply for emergency relief. They said in all their time living in New York they've never seen anything like this. Franklin says he's had to walk 20 minutes to find an open store. He said she had to walk almost 70 blocks to find a laundromat.

"The neighborhood doesn't look nothing like it did a few days ago," DeQuan said.

The Playboy bunny is coming to India — even though the magazine is still banned.

India, like many other conservative countries, has not permitted Playboy to appear on newsstands. But the brand still plans to come to India in a big way.

Over the next 10 years, around 120 Playboy venues are expected to open across India, including bars, clubs, fashion cafes and stores. The first Playboy club will open next month in the holiday destination of Goa.

The World Anti-Doping Agency announced Friday that it won't fight the sanctions imposed against American cyclist Lance Armstrong.

As New Jersey and New York continue to pick the pieces in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, the death toll has slowly crept up to 97.

I'd almost forgotten about the NYC Marathon, thanks to Sandy, and when I did remember that this is "Marathon Weekend," I just assumed it would get cancelled.

As of this writing, the ING New York City Marathon is not cancelled. But it should be. Immediately.