NPR News

The past 24 hours have produced a few answers — but many more questions — about the anti-Islam film that became a flashpoint across North Africa and the Middle East this week.

NPR's Carrie Kahn reports on Morning Edition that The Innocence of Muslims was shot in Los Angeles County last August, under the title Desert Warriors. It's full of "choppy dialogue, bad acting and scenes of a buffoonish Muhammad," she says.

Hanna Rosin's pop sociology work The End of Men, based on her cover story in The Atlantic magazine, is a frustrating blend of genuine insight and breezy, unconvincing anecdotalism. She begins with a much-discussed statistic: three-quarters of the 7.5 million jobs lost in our current recession were once held by men.

UPDATE: 11:37 a.m. As expected, the New York Board of Health passed a rule banning sugary drinks like soda in sizes 16 oz. or larger at restaurants, concession stands and other eateries in an effort to combat obesity today. The ban is expected to take effect in March, but according to the Wall Street Journal, opponents are already considering a legal challenge to prevent that. It passed 8-0.

Fiction and nonfiction releases from Mat Johnson, Hector Tobar, Ayad Akhtar, Mike Birbiglia and Steven Brill.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

A man in Japan wanted to make it into the Guinness book of world records. He considered trying to drink the most hot sauce, but settled on a spikier record. His hairdo — a mohawk — stands 3 feet, 8.6 inches high.

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep, on a tense day across the Arab world. We're gathering information from Yemen, where hundreds of protestors today breached the wall of the U.S. embassy. Witnesses say they burned an American flag, though it appears none reached the main embassy building. One reporter describes a man in the streets shouting against Jews and Christians, and the reporter adds: This is not the Yemen I know.

Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep speak with NPR's Dina Temple-Raston and Leila Fadel for the latest on the deadly U.S. Embassy attack in Libya.