Europe
4:22 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

EU Squeezes Iran With New Oil Sanctions

Credit Virginia Mayo / AP
The EU has agreed to an embargo on buying oil from Iran in the latest sanction against that country for its nuclear program. Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign policy chief, speaks here in Brussels on Monday following a meeting of EU foreign ministers.

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.

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The Conservation Beat
4:06 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Northern NM Ranchers Sue to Protect Heritage

Credit law keven

A group of ranchers and Rio Arriba County are suing the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to limit grazing on historic land grant areas in northern New Mexico.  KUNM’S Sidsel Overgaard has more.

For more conservation stories, check out our blog: earth air waves

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The Two-Way
3:55 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Washington Set To Be Seventh State To OK Same-Sex Marriages

Citing the Golden Rule and saying that "all men and women in our state [should] enjoy the same privileges that are so important in my life," the last legislator needed to pass same-sex marriage legislation in Washington State announced this afternoon that she will support the measure.

Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen, a Democrat, posted a statement about her decision here.

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The Salt
3:47 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Not Your Grandmother's Hospital Food

Credit iStockphoto.com
Hospital food is going from gruel to gourmet.

Hospital food, like airplane food, is the kind of institutional food we love to hate.

But the days of jello cups and puddles of grayish gravy are numbered.

A lot of people — from deep-pocketed foodies to fast-food lovers to locavores — aren't standing for barely edible hospital food anymore.

At one end of the spectrum, some hospitals are going extreme gourmet. And not just with spinach salad or whole grain rolls on the tray.

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Sports
3:20 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Cash-Strapped L.A. Dodgers Shop For A New Owner

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.

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All Tech Considered
3:14 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Stanford Takes Online Schooling To The Next Academic Level

Credit knowitvideos / vie YouTube
Stanford Engineering's Online Introduction To Artificial Intelligence is made up of videos that teach lessons by drawing them out with pen and paper.
Middle East
2:31 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

In Egypt, Islamists Take Control Of A New Parliament

Egypt's Islamists formalized their new stature on Monday as the first freely elected parliament in six decades held its inaugural session in Cairo.

The session was broadcast live on Egyptian state television and was largely spent swearing in the 508 members, most of whom belong to the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafist movement.

But outside the parliament, not everyone was celebrating.

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Russell Lewis is the Southern Bureau Chief for NPR News, a post he has held since 2006. Lewis focuses on the issues and news central to the Southeast — from Florida to Virginia to Texas, including West Virginia, Kentucky and Oklahoma. In addition to developing and expanding NPR's coverage of the region, Lewis assigns and edits stories from station-based reporters and freelancers alike, working closely with local correspondents and public radio stations. He also spent a year in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, coordinating NPR's coverage of the rebuilding effort. He's currently based in Birmingham, Alabama.

Lewis began his public radio career in 1992 at NPR member station WUFT in Gainesville, Florida, where he was an executive news producer. He spent time at WSVH in Savannah, Georgia. Lewis also worked for Kansas Public Radio and reported on the state legislature. He spent six years on the West Coast, working at one of public radio's flagship stations: KPBS in San Diego where he was senior editor and a reporter. He most recently was assistant news director and talk-show host at WGCU in Fort Myers, Florida. He was a frequent contributor to NPR, specializing in military and business issues.

In his spare time, Lewis loves to cook, read, and ride his bicycle.

Technology
2:28 pm
Mon January 23, 2012

Niche No More: Survey Shows Tablets Are Everywhere

Credit Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the new Kindle Fire tablet in New York, on September 28, 2011. The Fire's strong holiday sales were part of a trend that now has nearly a third of all American adults owning an e-book reader or tablet computer.

A few weeks ago, Mike Wendlinger bought himself a Christmas present — a Nook Simple Touch e-book reader. And when he did, he joined a wave of Americans who have combined to make e-readers and their more powerful bretheren, tablet computers, into genuine mass market devices.

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