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Middle East
1:05 am
Thu March 8, 2012

Egypt's Moves Leave Democracy Advocate Bewildered

Credit Courtesy IRI
Sam LaHood of the International Republican Institute is one of 19 American democracy promoters who face charges of fomenting unrest in Egypt. Here, he is shown last month at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Sam LaHood, the son of U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood, spent four weeks holed up at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, sleeping on an air mattress part of the time and trying to fathom why the Egyptians wanted to prosecute him and his pro-democracy colleagues.

Eventually, LaHood's organization and others with employees facing prosecution paid more than $300,000 a person in bail to get them off the Egyptian travel ban, and the U.S. government flew most of them home.

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Monkey See
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

On HBO, A Bestselling Book Becomes A Movie About A 'Dynamic Moment'

Credit Phillip V. Caruso / HBO
Ed Harris as John McCain and Julianne Moore as Sarah Palin in the HBO film Game Change.

There were a lot of good stories from the 2008 presidential election, including Hillary Clinton's serious run for the Democratic nomination, not to mention the election of the first African-American president. The whole story was covered in the bestselling — and controversial — book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, Game Change.

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Japan In Crisis
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

With Radiation, Doubt Grows In Fukushima Farms

The mountain village of Kawauchi lies partly inside the area deemed unsafe because of high levels of radiation in Japan's Fukushima prefecture. Chiharu Kubota uses a high-pressure water gun to hose down buildings there.

Radiation is still leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns immediately after last year's earthquake and tsunami.

'Nothing Is Better'

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Presidential Race
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

How Far Apart On Iran Are GOP Candidates, Obama?

Credit AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in April 2008. Western governments suspect Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. How to handle the possible threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is a major foreign policy concern of the U.S.

Republican presidential candidates this week — with the exception of Ron Paul — appeared to be trying to outdo each other in saying how tough they would be in dealing with Iran. Speaking before a pro-Israel group, they said President Obama has been weak — "feckless," in Mitt Romney's words.

Obama, meanwhile, was not impressed. He said he'd heard a lot of "bluster" and "big talk" about Iran, "but when you actually ask them specifically what they would do, it turns out they repeat the things that we've been doing over the last three years."

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Around the Nation
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

In Denver Taxis, Extra Eyes On The Street For Police

Some days, it would be easy to mistake the Metro Taxi dispatch center in Denver for a police station. Traffic and crime incidents are recorded in a special logbook, as drivers call in descriptions and locations to police.

It's part of a program called Taxis on Patrol. Just a day after the program began, a cab driver helped police make an arrest for a fatal hit-and-run. In the months since, eyewitness calls from cabbies using a bulletin system similar to an Amber Alert have led to hundreds of arrests.

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Planet Money
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

The European Central Bank, As Seen From A Bar On The Coast Of Spain

Credit JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP/Getty Images

Originally published on Mon May 7, 2012 12:14 pm

"I have a little bar. A drinks bar," says Chadd Ritenbaugh. His bar is called El Catalonia. It's in the port of Marbella, on the Spanish coast.

"Just sun, sand, and sea," he says. "It's just kind of empty at the moment."

Ritenbaugh bought the bar in 2009. Since then, business has gone downhill. He tried, and failed, to sell.

"Nobody's out buying bars right now," he says. "Banks in Spain are not lending a cent — a euro cent."

Chad himself tried and failed to get a bank loan. "Absolutely nothing," he says.

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Books News & Features
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

'Lifespan': What Are The Limits Of Literary License?

When an author writes something that's supposed to be a true story and readers discover he's stretched the truth, things can get ugly fast. Recall Oprah Winfrey's famous rebuke of author James Frey for making up much of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces. "I feel duped, but more importantly, I feel that you betrayed millions of readers," she told him.

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Author Interviews
10:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

'Fragile Beginnings': When Babies Are Born Too Soon

Dr. Adam Wolfberg had two daughters and another on the way when his wife, Kelly, went into labor. But this joyous occasion had come much too soon — Kelly was three months away from her due date. After just 26 weeks in the womb, their baby daughter Larissa entered the world by emergency cesarean section and was whisked into the neonatal intensive care unit of a Boston hospital. It was the same hospital where Wolfberg was doing his residency in obstetrics and gynecology, and his medical background turned out to be a mixed blessing.

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The Two-Way
4:40 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

'Give It To Your Woman, It's Her Job' Laundry Tag Doesn't Wash With Many

Credit twitter.com/emmabarnett
The Twitpic that exposed some dirty laundry.

When Emma Barnett saw the laundry tag in her boyfriend's pants she was shocked.

"Give It To Your Woman," it read. "It's Her Job."

So Barnett did what you would expect the digital media editor of The Telegraph would do. She posted the photo online and started tweeting.

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StoryCorps
4:21 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

A Mom Becomes A Man, And A Family Sticks Together

This spring, Les and Scott GrantSmith will mark their 25th wedding anniversary. The couple raised two daughters along the way. But 15 years ago, they hit a crisis that nearly shattered their family. Les was keeping a secret, and that became a problem. But they solved it as a family, in a way that kept them together and happy.

In the weeks leading up to that day back in 1997, Les was certain of two things: She was a mother who loved her daughters — and she was also transgender, the term for someone born in a body of the wrong sex.

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The Two-Way
4:05 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Utah Legislature Votes To Prohibit Schools From Teaching About Contraception

A bill "that would let schools skip teaching sex education and prohibit instruction in the use of contraception" is headed to Utah Gov. Gary Herbert's desk after the state Senate today approved it by a 19-10 vote, The Salt Lake Tribune writes.

Schools would need to focus on "abstinence-only" instruction.

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It's All Politics
4:05 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Ron Paul's In-It-To-Win-It Strategy Is "Not Far-Fetched," Campaign Manager Says

Texas Congressman Ron Paul hasn't won any of the 23 Republican presidential primaries or caucuses already in the 2012 history books.

He's captured only 29 delegates, just five percent of those awarded in contests to date. (Frontrunner Mitt Romney has 340 committed delegates, 58 percent of those officially allotted, according to NPR calculations.)

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Money & Politics
4:05 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

SuperPAC Spent Heavily Before Super Tuesday

Credit Gerald Herbert / AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney campaigns at a town hall meeting in Bexley, Ohio, last month. Romney won Ohio by less than 1 percent in Tuesday's primary.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's six primary wins on Super Tuesday didn't come cheap. An NPR analysis shows that last week alone, the Romney campaign and the pro-Romney superPAC combined spent nearly $7 million on TV ads.

Less than $1 million of that was spent by Romney's official campaign, while the pro-Romney superPAC Restore Our Future — which has almost exclusively engaged in negative advertising this year — spent $5.7 million.

That's compared to $220,000 spent on ads last week by the superPAC supporting former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

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The Salt
3:55 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

When Food Aid Goes Local, Some Say It Works Better

Credit Daniel LeClair / Reuters /Landov
A worker piles sacks of corn at a market in Guatemala City.

There's finally some careful research that goes a long way toward resolving one of the hot debates over food aid — whether it's better to ship bags of rice and corn from the United States, or to buy food close to where it's needed. Emergency food supplies will be needed this summer, for instance, in the Sahel region of Africa.

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Europe
3:37 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Uncertainty Looms As Greek Debt Deadline Nears

Credit Louisa Gouliamaki / AFP/Getty Images
People walk past the Bank of Greece headquarters in Athens. Greece toughened its stance to push creditors to accept a debt swap and take heavy losses, just one day before the Thursday deadline for completion of the deal to avert default.

Stock prices rebounded somewhat Wednesday, one day after their biggest sell-off of the year. What caused prices to plunge Tuesday was an all-too-familiar problem: the Greek debt crisis.

European officials have cobbled together a deal to keep Greece from defaulting, and investors all over the world who hold Greek bonds are weighing their options. They're worried about what could happen if they reject the deal.

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Movies
3:23 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

In 'Mosquita Y Mari,' A Tale Of Self And Community

The film Mosquita y Mari — the first narrative feature by a Chicana director to screen at the Sundance Film Festival — is both the singular vision of writer-director Aurora Guerrero and a crowdsourced production that could not have been made without multiple communities coming together.

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House & Senate Races
3:08 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Longtime Rep. Kucinich Is Down, But Maybe Not Out

The Two-Way
2:52 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Sun Sends Solar Flares Speeding Toward Earth; Will Hit Thursday [VIDEO]

Credit NASA
This image of a huge and powerful solar flare was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Tuesday.
Shots - Health Blog
2:50 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

1 In 3 Americans Is Having A Hard Time Paying Medical Bills

Credit / iStockphoto.com

While politicians and soon, the Supreme Court, are fighting about the fate of the Affordable Care Act, a new government study finds that a growing number of Americans are having difficulty coping with the high cost of health care.

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The Salt
2:35 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Inhalable Caffeine Maker Gets Warning Letter From FDA

Credit Charles Krupa / AP
A woman holds an AeroShot inhalable caffeine device in Boston.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has sent a warning letter to the maker of a caffeine inhaler that's marketed around college campuses. The agency says it's concerned about misleading claims about the product and its safety.

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The Two-Way
1:31 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Scientists Say They've 'Cornered' The Elusive 'God Particle'

Credit AP
Fermilab and the Tevatron sit in the Illinois countryside near Chicago.

Scientists from Fermilab say they've basically "cornered" the elusive Higgs boson — that's the particle that some have nicknamed the "God Particle," because it would fill in the final blank of Albert Einstein's theory of the universe.

This is complicated stuff, of course, but essentially the scientists at Fermilab say they found a bump in their data that suggests the existence of the particle. That bump corresponds to the evidence scientists at the Large Hadron Collider have found.

Here's a bit of explanation from the Fermilab press release:

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Around the Nation
1:24 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

'Les Bons Temps Rouler' To The Auction Block

Originally published on Wed March 7, 2012 4:08 pm

In New Orleans, the 2012 Mardi Gras is just a memory. But for those who collect Mardi Gras memorabilia, the celebration lasts all year.

Some of those collectors will be at the Kenner Mardi Gras Museum on Thursday. It's about a half-hour drive from the French Quarter — not a convenient trip for many tourists, and declining attendance is one reason it closed after two decades. Now its collection will be auctioned.

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The Two-Way
1:21 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Brazil Moves To Ease Soccer Beer Ban, As World Cup Spat With FIFA Grows

Brazil took a step toward relaxing its strict ban on alcohol at soccer stadiums Tuesday, responding to World Cup organizers' concerns. The Federation International de Football Association is pushing for the change so it can make Budweiser the "Official Beer of the FIFA World Cup" when Brazil hosts the event in 2014.

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Middle East
1:18 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Christians Provide Free Labor On Jewish Settlements

Credit Courtesy of Heather Meyers
Evangelical Christians from the U.S. are living and working at Jewish settlements in the West Bank for weeks at a time. The Christians see Jewish expansion in the area as fulfilling biblical prophecy, though the settlements are a contentious issue between Israelis and Palestinians. Here volunteers harvest grapes.

It's wet and windy day in Shilo, a Jewish settlement in the central part of the West Bank that has about 10,000 residents.

In addition to the settlers, there are a few extra people staying in Shilo on this day. They are Christian volunteers from the U.S. who have spent the morning pruning the grape vines. Now, with a winter storm beating down on the hills, the volunteers are stomping with their mud-splattered boots and North Face rain gear.

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Religion
1:00 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Vatican Orders Cleveland Parishes Reopened

The Vatican is ordering the Diocese of Cleveland to open 13 parishes that had been closed. The decision might bode well for other parishes across the country that are appealing their closures.

National Security
1:00 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Pentagon Defends U.S. Policy Toward Syria

Key Senators pressed the head of the Pentagon on why the U.S. is not being more aggressive in trying to help rebels in Syria. But Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey both insisted that Syrian air defenses make the prospect of airstrikes — like those used in Libya — very difficult. They also said the opposition in Syria is too fractured to risk sending in arms, which could end up in the hands of extremists.

The Two-Way
12:50 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Limbaugh Says Business Is Fine; Maybe 28 Of 18,000 Advertisers Have Left

Credit Ethan Miller / Getty Images
Things are fine, Limbaugh says. (January 2010 file photo.)

Saying that "everything is fine on the business side" and that the number of advertisers who have left his show is akin to "losing a couple of french fries in the container when it's delivered to you at the drive-thru," conservative radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh today took time to clear up what he says has been "misinformation" about the repercussions from his recent comments about Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke.

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Shots - Health Blog
12:46 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Here's Hoping You Never Get A Hotel Bill Like This One

Credit Costs Of Care
There are no standard rates. We can charge whatever we want.

Sit back and enjoy a video that will probably give you a chuckle, then might make you fume.

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The Two-Way
12:00 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

Ugandan Warlord Joseph Kony Under Spotlight Thanks To Viral Video

Credit Stuart Price / AP
The leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, Joseph Kony, in 2006.
Presidential Race
11:18 am
Wed March 7, 2012

Can Republicans Win Over Women In November?

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 8:58 am

For the first presidential cycle in years, Republicans seemed to have a shot at overcoming Democrats' long-standing edge with women voters.

They fared better than Democrats among women overall in the 2010 midterm election — the Republicans' best overall national result among women in 18 years.

And 2012 seemed to have the potential to turn that good showing into a trend, a key advantage in an electorate where women make up the majority of all voters.

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