Torture and repression in Russian-occupied Kherson

Plus, Iceland says it's like space, only better. [View this email online]( [Best of NPR]( Nov. 20, 2022 --------------------------------------------------------------- Scott’s Weekly Weigh-in [A little boy peeks under the voting both curtain as his mother casts her ballot.]( Gerald Herbert/AP A good weekend to you. I’ve wondered this week why so many pre-election polls were so wrong. Pollsters remind us there is [typically a 3% margin of error]( in their surveys. If a candidate projected to lose by 2% actually wins by 1%, pollsters can still insist they were right — it was within their margin of error. I’ve tried to imagine a baseball player who strikes out and sulks back to the dugout to tell the manager, "Skip, I was still within the margin of error!" Actual votes decide elections. But I worry about the ways reporters, myself included, cite polls on every issue as if they were hard, certifiable facts, not just projections of bits and pieces of public opinion distilled from surveys and focus groups which, after all, speak to a relatively small percentage of people. Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, [gamely appeared on CNN]( this week to acknowledge he had been wrong in his predictions, and said polls may be off because people change their minds. "About 8, 9% changes," he told CNN. "They come in undecided, and they have to decide what they want to do at that moment ... 8% comes in and they may change their mind." It was the most reassuring insight I’ve heard from a pollster. What they call the margin of error may just be a learning curve. People think they’re sure of something. But we learn more, live more, and sometimes, we change. Living and learning are at the heart of our interview this week with the great playwright Tony Kushner, who’s latest collaboration with Stephen Spielberg (know the name?) is [The Fabelmans](. This week’s essay remembers [Michael Gerson]( a columnist who also wrote from and for the heart. And didn’t you want to watch a [dog listen to a little girl]( play "Moon River"? [Scott Simon]( Scott Simon is one of NPR's most renowned news anchors. He is the host of [Weekend Edition Saturday]( and one of the hosts of the morning news podcast Up First. Be sure to listen to him every Saturday on your local NPR station, and follow him [on Twitter](. --------------------------------------------------------------- Newsletter continues after sponsor message --------------------------------------------------------------- Stories you may have missed [A burned cot in a dark room.]( Pete Kiehart for NPR Residents of newly liberated Kherson in Ukraine recall fear, torture and repression during eight months under Russian occupation. “We heard these crazy screams at night,” one resident says. “There were shouts from the jail of [people being tortured at night](. In the summer when you opened the window, we heard it very well.” Regulators OK'd a plan to demolish four dams on California's Klamath River and open up hundreds of miles of salmon habitat. The project, championed by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years, will be the [largest dam removal and river restoration project]( in the world when it goes forward. In 2019, Donald Trump tweeted an image that left intelligence experts gobsmacked. It was a photo of a rocket that had exploded on a launch pad deep inside Iran. More than three years later, the U.S. government has formally declassified the image from one of its [most powerful spy satellites](. NPR found 26 people who worked on more than 200 executions — executioners, wardens, lawyers and others — in 17 states. No one who witnessed executions expressed [support for the death penalty]( including those who went into the death chamber supporting it. --------------------------------------------------------------- Before you go Hordur Sveinsson/Visit Iceland - Iceland is like Mars — if the Red Planet had hot tubs. That's the cheeky idea behind a new pitch from Iceland's tourism board, which says people don't need a spaceship to [see otherworldly sights](. Plus, Iceland has oxygen. - The presidential practice of pardoning turkeys doesn't go back as far as you might think, and has been sustained by a special interest group — [the turkey lobby](. - These hats are a symbol of freedom for France. Now they're the mascot of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, and the puffy red figures with [earflaps for arms]( are drawing mixed reviews. - On a cluster of islands in Norway, everyone wears headlamps in winter because it's pitch black outside. A researcher set out to discover how they [stay positive, despite the dark](. - The James Webb telescope has taken photos of galaxies [formed near the dawn of time]( delighting and surprising scientists. --------------------------------------------------------------- Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to find your local station stream. [Listen Live]( [Facebook]( [Instagram]( [Twitter]( Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! [They can sign up here.]( Looking for more great content? 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