According to the latest US census data, nearly 80 percent of Americans speak only one language. But one state is taking a gamble on multilingualism in a big way: Utah. It’s become a pioneer in foreign language learning, even as some residents are unhappy with the move.
In 2011, US President Barack Obama spared world leaders the indignity of sporting Aloha shirts at a summit in Honolulu. But the matching shirt tradition is a hard one to kill. Meanwhile, millions of Catalans cast a symbolic vote for independence from Spain on Sunday. And a once-secret recording shows Ronald Reagan at his most charming in defusing a crisis. All that in today’s Global Scan.
US-Soviet relations hit a low point in the early 1980s, but one American and one Russian believed they could bring citizens of the two countries together. They succeeded in building an early video-chat system that allowed Americans and Russians to see and talk with each other across oceans.
In 1984, Russian historian Suzanne Massie got a call she’ll never forget. President Ronald Reagan invited her to the White House to brief him on Russian history and culture. Little did she know that this would be the beginning of many years of advising the president.
More than 70 people, mostly sailors, have sued the Tokyo Electric Power Company for making them sick. Naval personnel claim the company, which ran the Fukushima nuclear reactor, failed to warn the US Navy that its ships were sailing into dangerously radioactive waters.