Search results for

Six University of Maryland students admit they got extra help on an accounting exam by surreptitious use of cell phones. (At least they weren't driving.) Also, a Norwegian lawmaker apologizes for playing a war game on a pocket computer at a most inappropriate time.

NPR's David Welna reports on President Bush's newly revealed Social Security Commission. The panel is supposed to develop a Social Security reform plan by next fall. Democrats on Capitol Hill were unenthusiastic about the announcement, claiming Bush stacked the deck against them by loading the commission with members who all favor personal retirement accounts.

President Bush's plan to allow private accounts for Social Security may send a lot of business to Wall Street; but lobbyists for reform say the returns for financial firms are not necessarily so great. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan reviews Alex Gibney's award-winning documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Gibney adapted a book that chronicles the fantastic rise and demise of the company that was engulfed in scandal when its outrageous accounting practices were exposed.

Former Worldcom chief Bernard Ebbers is indicted on charges that he participated in an $11 billion accounting fraud at the company. In the same investigation, former Worldcom chief finance officer Scott Sullivan pleads guilty and will cooperate with federal prosecutors. Ebbers and Sullivan are charged with securities fraud and conspiracy. NPR's Robert Smith reports.

NPR's Laura Sydell reports that the war in Iraq has generated increased interest in blogs, short for web logs. Blogging is the web-based practice of keeping an ever-updated personal account of some subject. Bloggers have become archivists, culling information they feel is not being presented in mainstream media and providing links to foreign news sources.

British historian David Cesarani's new book, Major Farran's Hat, is a nonfiction account of the final days of the British mandate in Palestine.

Alan Cheuse reviews A Hole in Texas by 88-year-old Herman Wouk, a fictional account of a scientist involved with the Texas-based Superconducting Super Collider project. Set in the 1990s the novel has both Hollywood and Congress woven into its plot.

In recent years, Facebook routinely deleted the accounts of inmates in response to requests by prison officials. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Sarah Shourd of The Daily Beast about debate on this topic.

NPR's Margo Adler reports that Swiss banking authorities and officials from several Jewish organizations signed an agreement last week that may provide a full accounting of funds deposited in Swiss banks by European Jews in the years before the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors and families of holocaust victims have not been able to trace the funds until now due to the secrecy laws governing Swiss banks.