This is a ten-minute audio piece that explores the process of adapting foreign language films for an English-speaking audience. Focusing on the 2021 anime film Belle from director Mamoru Hosoda, this story features interviews with voice actors, producers, and directors that have firsthand experience translating and dubbing anime scripts. As the anime industry has grown rapidly over the past two years, this piece seeks to explain the importance of having access to English dubs for films to have global success. Industry workers talk about the English dub’s originality and why access to foreign language films can spark viewers' interest in other cultures or serve as an educational tool.

An exploration of anime through English language

Extreme heat causes school cancellations nationwide
Aired 08/31/2022
Written, voiced and produced by Grace Newton

Schools across the nation have been faced with early closures and cancellations amid
heat waves stretching from coast-to-coast. NPR's Grace Newton reports the excessive
heat follows a summer of already extreme temperatures...
 
Just a few days into the new school year, officials in Philadelphia announced MORE
THAN 100 schools will dismiss three hours earlier than normal multiple days this week
citing a lack of "sufficient cooling systems" in the buildings...
 
According to Philadelphia school district officials, fifty-seven percent of the area's 
schools don't have adequate air conditioning...threatening classroom temperatures to
potentially reach 90 degrees or more...
 
A statement from the Philadelphia federation of teachers says the union has been
pushing for school buildings to upgrade and maintain air conditioning systems for years
now.
 
Schools in Baltimore, Ohio and parts of Southern California have taken similar steps this
week due to conditions of heat and no air conditioning.
 
Grace Newton, NPR News

Newscast Spot #1 - Extreme heat causes school cancellations nationwide - Grace Newton

Free COVID-19 test kit program suspended due to lack of funding
Aired 8/29/2022
Written, voiced and produced by Grace Newton

Starting this Friday, Americans will no longer have access to the COVID-19 testing kits that
were once being shipped to their front doors for free. NPR&#39;s Grace Newton has more...
 
A new message on the federal government's coronavirus website announces the suspension of
the program that allows residential households in the U.S. to order free at-home coronavirus
testing kits beginning September 2nd.
 
The announcement attributes the program’s pause to Congress’s lack of funding to replenish the
nations stockpile of tests.
 
The White House sent out the first round of test kits in January...and by May, the Biden
administration announced that 350 million tests had been given to 70 million households,
accounting for more than half the households in the U.S.
 
The program will continue accepting orders until FRIDAY.
 
For NPR News, I'm Grace Newton