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Karen Black was oddly alluring, with that wide sly smile and those slightly off-kilter eyes, and The New York Timesonce called her "something of a freak, a beautiful freak." Her friend Peter Fonda says that's what made her so intriguing.

"She wasn't a conventional-looking woman," he told NPR. "And she took that unconventional look and made it interesting, made you want to see more of it."

On screen, she parlayed that allure into quirky character roles that in many ways captured the zeitgeist of the 1960s and '70s. Black starred in some of the most important movies of those decades, at a time when American independent film was becoming a real artistic and commercial force. Later, in a career that encompassed Broadway, TV and more than 100 films, she went from being a counterculture darling to a queen of kitsch horror. She died this week at age 74, of complications from cancer.

Her breakthrough was with Fonda in the 1969 hippie classic Easy Rider, playing a New Orleans prostitute who drops acid with him and Dennis Hopper — in a cemetery. Their trip was disturbing, intriguing and unforgettable.

President Obama is set to hold a news conference at the White House on Friday at 3 p.m. ET — his first such formal give-and-take with the press corps since "NSA leaker" Edward Snowden starting spilling secrets about National Security Agency surveillance programs in June.

So we should expect questions about Snowden, spying and civil liberties, as well as strained relations with Russia, the economy and other subjects.

We're planning to follow along and live blog during the news conference. Check back with us as the time draws closer. Also, NPR.org will be streaming the audio and many member stations will broadcast NPR's coverage. Of course, it will also be broadcast on the cable news channels and webcast by the White House.

The president's last "full" news conference was on April 30. Our coverage of it is here.

The president and his family are due to leave the White House on Saturday for a 9-day vacation on Martha's Vineyard, Mass.

A couple of nights ago I had just closed my book, turned off my light, and was drifting off to sleep when my cellphone started to shriek. I shot awake and groped for the phone. My sleep-befuddled brain was greeted with this message: "Boulevard, CA Amber Alert update." Then there was a license plate number, and a make and model of the car.

Groggily, I Google this town — Boulevard, Calif. — and discovered it was 541 miles away from my house. That's more than the distance between Washington, D.C., and Detroit. I was mystified. Why was I getting this?

And I wasn't the only Californian who was confused.

Jamie de Guerre is at Topsy, a firm that analyzes Twitter traffic and content for businesses. "We saw a very, very high spike in the number of people tweeting the phrase 'Amber Alert' and responding to having seen this on their phone," he says.

Before the alarm, that phrase was receiving a handful of mentions on Twitter, but in the hours immediately after the alert went out across California, it was mentioned in more than 160,000 tweets.

"The sentiment of the overall tweets was definitely negative," de Guerre says.

More than 21,000 tweets used the phrase "Amber Alert" and the word "scared." "OMFG" came up more than once, the word "annoying" more than 1,700 times.

"The last thing that wireless providers want to do is annoy their subscribers," says Brian Josef, who handles government affairs for CTIA, the wireless industry's lobbying association in Washington. "What we don't want to see is a car alarm syndrome where people disregard the alerts, or worse, they opt out."

Alerts Spark A Frenzy On Twitter

That Amber Alert tone you received on your cell phone might have scared some of you but we need all eyes out for this http://t.co/w9hfIq7Y2p

— CHP Southern Div. (@CHPsouthern) August 6, 2013

On the first Saturday of August, a funny thing happened to 150,000 people on their way to the Forum.

While a pianist and sax player set the mood, people looked upward and watched anxiously as acrobat Andrea Loreni made his way slowly on a tightrope stretched across Via dei Fori Imperiali, the wide avenue flanking the Roman Forum and leading to the Coliseum.

The acrobat's walk was meant as a metaphor, a bridge reuniting ancient squares.

Dictator Benito Mussolini built the avenue in the 1920's as a tribute to Fascism's imperial aspirations. In the process, he destroyed a densely populated neighborhood and separated the forums of the emperors Trajan, Augustus, Caesar and Nerva.

In 1953, the thoroughfare was immortalized by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck on a scooter ride in the movie Roman Holiday.

Since then, traffic has gotten out of control, with some 1,600 motorists an hour using it at peak times. But now, pedestrians won't have to plug their ears against beeping horns or duck for cover from speeding SUVs. The new restrictions mean the Coliseum is no longer a traffic circle.

Buses and taxis will still be able to use the via dei Fori Imperiali leading up to the Coliseum, but a 20 mile-per-hour speed limit has been put in place.

The mayor, Ignazio Marino, hopes to eventually close several more streets around the ancient monuments, ultimately leading to the Apian Way, to create what he calls the biggest archaeological park in the world.

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