All Things Considered Sunday

Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords took to the House floor Wednesday one last time to say good-bye, for now, to her colleagues. It was an emotional scene as she handed in her resignation, a little more than a year after being gravely injured in an assassination attempt.

The Sundance Film Festival is under way in Park City, Utah, this week. The annual independent film festival has more than a hundred films screening over 10 days. Melissa Block checks in with Los Angeles Times film writer Steven Zeitchik. He says the nation's economic struggles are evident in many of the films on display. And it's not just the documentaries — it's also in the fictional films.

Newt Gingrich celebrated his win in the South Carolina primary with a fundraising blitz — a two-day push to raise as much money as possible. The campaign says it brought in $2 million. That money will come in handy in Florida. But the need for quick fundraising shows the precarious state of the Gingrich campaign's finances.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigned in Florida Tuesday. He delivered an economic speech from a shuttered factory — a studied contrast to the president's State of the Union speech later Tuesday night.

Melissa Block and Robert Siegel read emails from listeners.

The battle over Iran's nuclear program escalated Monday as the European Union announced an embargo on importing oil from Iran.

For years, Europe has been reluctant to join the United States in imposing tough sanctions on Iran. The United States years ago stopped buying Iranian oil, while European nations including France, Spain, Italy, and Greece kept up their purchases. European countries right now buy about 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of professional sports' most storied franchises. But they're up for auction because much-maligned and outgoing owner Frank McCourt was forced to put the team under bankruptcy protection last summer.

Now, preliminary bids for the Dodgers are due on Monday. The team lost its luster during McCourt's ownership, but estimates for the winning bid range from $1.2 to $2 billion, dwarfing the record $845 million paid for the Chicago Cubs a couple of years ago.

John Hawkes' conversation with Melissa Block on today's All Things Considered begins as many of his conversations might: with her noting that when she told people she was coming to talk to him and rattled off his credits, she got a response that he undoubtedly gets a lot: "Ohhh, he's that guy."

Research In Motion, the maker of Blackberry smart phones, used to be a dominant player. Now, it's looking like an also-ran. The company announced a management shake-up Monday, but the new guy won't have much time to pull off a turnaround.

Robert Siegel talks with this year's Randolph Caldecott Medal winner Chris Raschka, who won for A Ball for Daisy. The Caldecott award is one of the most distinguished prizes in children's literature.