Weekend America Voices
Desiree Cooper
Recent Stories
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The World's Smallest* Chocolate Factory
Colin Gasko runs what may be* the smallest chocolate factory in the world. It operates out of his 350-square-foot converted warehouse space in Minneapolis. He calls himself the Rogue Chocolatier. In anticipation of a busy Valentine's Day, Weekend America host Desiree Cooper pays him a visit.
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City Voter, Country Voter
Bill Bishop, editor of an online magazine devoted to rural issues called "The Daily Yonder," talks about another voting divide: city versus country. He speaks with Weekend America host Desiree Cooper about what's on the minds of rural voters.
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An Issue of Belonging
Overseas, one group who has been pulling for Barack Obama in the political elections here are Kenyans. Obama's father was Kenyan. But in the wake of recent strife, some are reconsidering their support for tribal reasons. Weekend America host Desiree Cooper speaks with ABC News correspondent Dana Hughes about the change.
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A History of Super Tuesdays
More than two dozen states will hold primaries and caucuses on Feb. 5. This weekend the campaigning is intense, as the surviving candidates try to hit more states than ever before. Barbara Norrander, a political science teacher at the University of Arizona, tells Weekend America host Desiree Cooper about how Super Tuesday came to be, and why it may be a relic by the next election cycle.
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The MLK and LBJ Tapes
The working relationship between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and President Lyndon Johnson has come up in the campaigns of Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. Weekend America host Desiree Cooper speaks with Nick Kotz, historian and author of "Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America."
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A Sleep Deprived Election Season
This year's presidential candidates are criss-crossing the country daily, often on only a few hours of sleep a night. What exactly happens to the brain after months of sleep deprivation? To answer that, Weekend America host Desiree Cooper speaks with Matt Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuro-imaging Lab at the University of Calif. at Berkeley.
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The People of the Ice
Anne Aghion is probably less cold than you. She's spent four months filming the Ice People of Antarctica. They're a strange tribe: scientists who spend months working in the freezing Arctic.
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Hot Beams, Cold Air
Six months since the I-35 W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, construction plans have been going at warp speed. Crews have been working for about three and a half months, nearly around the clock, to build a new bridge by its scheduled opening date of Dec. 24. Round-the-clock work crews are nothing new, but in the dead of Minnesota winter, it's a feat. We check in with the workers building in sub-zero temperatures.
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Race versus Gender in 2008
Are black women voters really torn between Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as a matter of race and gender? Weekend America host Desiree Cooper weighs in.
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Jane Has a Dream
After Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott changed her lesson plan, dramatically. She divided up her all-white students by eye-color and then discriminated against one group, in order to teach them about racial injustice. The experiment had a huge impact.
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Reversing a Reputation
For years, the small town of Howell, Mich., has been trying to live down its reputation as a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan. Weekend America's Desiree Cooper visited Howell for an update on their progress.
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Was it the Bradley Effect?
After Hillary Clinton's win in New Hampshire, pundits have been arguing over whether the "Bradley Effect" contributed to Barack Obama's second-place finish. That's the phenomenon of voters telling pollsters they support a black candidate, but changing their minds in the voting booth. Weekend America's Desiree Cooper sits down with author and professor Michael Fauntroy to find out what's going on .
