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3:28 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

The Low-Tech Way Guns Get Traced

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:06 pm

Opponents of expanding background checks for gun sales often raise the fear that it would allow the government to create a national gun registry — a database of gun transactions. In fact, federal law already bans the creation of such a registry. And the reality of how gun sales records are accessed turns out to be surprisingly low-tech.

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Parallels
3:28 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

An Ancient Religious Pilgrimage That Now Draws The Secular

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:00 pm

A 1,200-year old European pilgrimage route is experiencing a revival. Last year alone, some 200,000 followed in the footsteps of their medieval forebears on the Way of St. James, making their way some 750 miles from Paris across France to the Spanish coastal city of Santiago de Compostela, and the relics of the eponymous apostle.

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The Two-Way
2:33 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Tornado Emergency Declared In Oklahoma City

Credit Sue Ogrocki / AP
A woman carries her child through a field near the collapsed Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Okla., on Monday A tornado as much as a mile wide with winds up to 200 mph roared through the Oklahoma City suburbs flattening entire neighborhoods, setting buildings on fire and landing a direct blow on an elementary school.

Originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 2:54 am

(This post was last updated at 11:45 p.m. ET.)

A massive tornado ripped through the southern suburbs of Oklahoma City, Monday afternoon, killing at least 51 people, according to the state medical examiner's office.

The death toll was expected to rise.

Helicopter images showed large tracts of Moore, Okla., completely leveled by what the National Weather Service says was at least an EF-4 tornado with winds in excess of 166 mph. The tornado stayed on the ground for 40 minutes and traveled 20 miles.

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All Tech Considered
2:29 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Yahoo's Other Billion Dollar Bets: Where Are They Now?

Credit Mark J. Terrill / AP
GeoCities employees pose for a picture in 1999 after the Yahoo acquisition was announced. Yahoo quietly shut down GeoCities a decade later.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 3:57 pm

Yahoo's $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr could be considered a bargain compared with its other big-dollar bets. The company's history is dotted with pricey purchases of once-hot Web properties that had more promise than eventual purpose. A look back:

GeoCities, 1999: $3.7 Billion

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Shots - Health News
2:28 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Latest Health Hurdle: Buying Insurance Without A Bank Account

Credit Mary Altaffer / AP
Millions of people who rely on check-cashing stores, like this one in New York City, could run into trouble buying health insurance.

Originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 3:43 pm

When movie stars become unbankable, they're no longer a slam dunk at the box office. When investments become unbankable, they're relegated to the Wall Street's junk pile. For ordinary Americans deemed unbankablethose who don't have a traditional checking or savings account — it can be hard to simply pay bills.

And that absence of a bank account is about to become a big problem for those who also lack health coverage — and for the health insurance companies trying to sell them coverage. After all, how do you sell a product to a customer who has no easy way to pay you?

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Music Reviews
2:24 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Aesop Rock And Kimya Dawson Showcase Their Strengths

Credit Chrissy Piper / Courtesy of the artist
The Uncluded features Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:16 pm

The Two-Way
2:19 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Fox Calls U.S. Surveillance Of Its Reporter 'Downright Chilling'

Fox News said that it was "outraged," after learning that the Justice Department obtained the personal emails of one of its reporters during the course of a 2009 leak investigation.

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Parallels
2:02 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Iran's 'Zahra' Tells Alternate Tale Of Presidential Campaign

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 11:17 pm

Iranians choose a new president next month, and one thing Iran's leaders are intent on avoiding is a repeat of the massive street protests that followed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial re-election in 2009.

The sponsors of those protests, known as the Green Movement, have been effectively silenced inside Iran, but not online. The heroine of a graphic novel about the violent suppression of dissent in 2009 is now launching a virtual campaign of her own.

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The Two-Way
1:46 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

British Aircraft Carrier HMS Ark Royal Heads For Scrap Yard

Credit Kyle Heller / AP
The HMS Ark Royal steams into Portsmouth, England, for the last time on Dec. 3, 2010, in preparation for decommissioning.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 3:22 pm

The people of Portsmouth, England, on Monday turned out to bid farewell to the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, destined for a Turkish scrap yard after its decommissioning two years ago.

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The Salt
1:27 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Washington State Butcher Spikes Pig Feed With Weed

Credit Courtesy of BB Ranch
William von Schneidau, who owns the BB Ranch butcher shop at Pike Place Market in Seattle, has made prosciutto from pigs fed marijuana.

Originally published on Wed May 22, 2013 8:25 am

William von Schneidau, an intrepid butcher in Seattle, is giving a whole new meaning to "potbelly pig." Lately, he's been feeding marijuana refuse to the pigs he turns into prosciutto for BB Ranch, his butcher shop in the city's famous Pike Place Marke

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The Salt
1:01 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Sandwich Monday: The Saltwich

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 1:48 pm

For years, one of the pieces of advice we've been ignoring is that we should really cut back on our salt intake. Now, a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine says limiting salt below a certain amount may not really do us any good. Around here, we take this to mean: Eat as much salt as you can or you'll die.

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The Two-Way
12:44 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

WATCH: A Train Wreck Of A 'Star-Spangled Banner' Performance

Credit YouTube
Alexis Normand sings the anthem.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 4:27 pm

The Two-Way
12:35 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Turnabout Is Fair Play: Senators Have Many Questions For IRS

Credit Nicholas Kamm / AFP/Getty Images
Outgoing acting Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Steven Miller.

The Internal Revenue Service is under fire for improperly singling out some conservative groups for extra scrutiny — putting them through months (or longer) of questions that delayed or derailed the organizations' requests for tax-exempt status.

Well, now the chairman and ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee have some questions and requests — actually dozens of them — for the IRS.

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The Two-Way
12:21 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Beijing Angry Over North Korea's Seizure Of Chinese Fishermen

Credit Jung Yeon-je / AFP/Getty Images
North Korea's missile test over the weekend, along with the capture of Chinese fishermen, has soured Beijing-Pyongyang relations.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 1:06 pm

Beijing has long been about the closest thing to an ally that Pyongyang enjoys, but the seizure of a Chinese fishing boat by unidentified North Koreans has threatened to put an already tenuous relationship on even shakier ground.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was quoted by The New York Times as making it fairly clear that his government was not happy about the development.

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Parallels
12:18 pm
Mon May 20, 2013

Pope Francis Puts The Poor Front And Center

Credit Andreas Solaro / AFP/Getty Images
Pope Francis blesses a child Sunday after the Holy Mass at St. Peter's Square, at the Vatican.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:06 pm

Over the past week, Pope Francis has launched a crescendo of attacks on the global financial system and what he calls a "cult of money" that does not help the poor.

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The Two-Way
11:46 am
Mon May 20, 2013

ABC's Karl Expresses Regret, But Stands By Benghazi Story

Credit ABCNews.go.com
ABC News' Jonathan Karl, delivering his initial report, part of which he now regrets.

ABC News White House correspondent Jonathan Karl now says he regrets that some key parts of a major story he reported on May 10 were wrong.

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The Two-Way
11:39 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Texas Company Scraps Controversial Lesson Plan System

After uproar over some lesson plans some conservatives deemed un-American, a Texas company has decided scrap a curriculum system used by 877 school districts that were too small or too poor to produce their own.

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Shots - Health News
10:42 am
Mon May 20, 2013

ADHD In Childhood May Feed Obesity In Adults

Credit iStockphoto.com
Does ADHD affect eating and weight?

Originally published on Wed May 22, 2013 6:07 am

Men who were diagnosed with ADHD as children are more likely to be obese in adulthood, according to a new study.

The men who had ADHD weighed 19 pounds more at age 41 than otherwise similar men who hadn't had ADHD as boys, the researchers found.

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Politics
10:21 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Decades Of History Behind IRS Flap

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up, when you think about poverty in this country, you might think about certain people living in certain places. It turns out that some of those old assumptions are wrong. For example, more poor people now live in the suburbs. We'll talk about why that is in just a few minutes.

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The Two-Way
9:56 am
Mon May 20, 2013

VIDEO: Look Inside A Grizzly Bear's Mouth

Credit Brad Josephs
That's a grizzly bear about to try to swallow a camera.
The Two-Way
9:32 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Deborah Turness, Of British ITV, Will Be President Of NBC News

Credit NBCUniversal
Deborah Turness.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 9:35 am

NBC announced Monday that Deborah Turness, the former editor of the British ITV News, will become president of NBC News beginning in August.

Turness, the network said, becomes the first woman to head the news division of one of the Big Three television networks in the United States.

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The Salt
9:01 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Can A Piece of Hair Reveal How Much Coke Or Pepsi You Drink?

Credit iStockphoto.com
Carbon isotope analysis: a scientific way to know just how much soda kids are drinking behind parents' backs?

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 10:00 am

One way to know how much soda people drink is to ask them.

The problem? We tend to underestimate, lie or forget what we've consumed.

And this is a challenge for researchers who study the links between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity.

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The Two-Way
9:00 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Supreme Court Takes Case On Prayer At Government Meetings

Credit Jonathan Ernst / Reuters /Landov
The Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., earlier this year.

A challenge to the way a western New York State town board has had prayers read before its public meetings has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices announced Monday morning that they will hear oral arguments in the case of Greece, N.Y. v. Galloway, Susan.

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The Two-Way
9:00 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Immigration Officers' Union Will Oppose Senate Bill

Credit John Moore / Getty Images
U.S. Office of Air and Marine pilot Jake Dreher guards the border along the Rio Grande River in Mission, Texas.

The union that represents 12,000 officers who process immigration applications said they will oppose a bipartisan bill that seeks to overhaul the nation's immigration policies.

As Fox News reports, The National CIS Council is the second union to oppose the bill being discussed in Congress. The National ICE Council, which represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, has expressed its opposition to the bill for a while now.

Fox reports:

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The Two-Way
6:50 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Pledging Not To 'Screw It Up,' Yahoo Seals Deal For Tumblr

Credit Fred Dufour / AFP/Getty Images
They're coming together: Yahoo will pay $1.1 billion to acquire Tumblr.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 7:06 am

The news that broke Sunday is now official.

Yahoo confirmed early Monday morning that it is buying Tumblr in a deal worth about $1.1 billion. "Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business," Yahoo added.

In its statement announcing the deal, Yahoo says that:

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The Two-Way
6:08 am
Mon May 20, 2013

FBI Agents Killed In Training Accident Worked In Elite Unit

Credit FBI.gov
Members of the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team during a training exercise in Quantico, Va. Two FBI agents who were part of the unit died Friday during a training exercise offshore near Virginia Beach, Va.
Law
6:02 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Court Case Winds Down In New York's Stop-And-Frisk Challenge

Credit Seth Wenig / AP
Protesters participate in a rally near the federal courthouse March 18 in New York. Lawyers for four men who say they were illegally stopped said many of the 5 million people stopped, questioned and sometimes frisked by police in the past decade were wrongly targeted because of their race.

Originally published on Mon May 20, 2013 8:11 am

Closing arguments are set to take place Monday in the federal class action trial involving New York City's stop-and-frisk policy. The trial has been going on for two months in Manhattan.

Plaintiffs in Floyd v. City of New York claim the New York Police Department, its supervisors and its union pressured police officers to stop, question and frisk hundreds of thousands of people each year, even establishing quotas. They argue that 88 percent of the stops involved blacks and Hispanics, mostly men, and were in fact a form of racial profiling.

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The Two-Way
5:22 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Book News: J.K. Rowling Tells 'Harry Potter' Backstories

Credit Ben Pruchnie / Getty Images
J.K. Rowling.

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

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Europe
5:00 am
Mon May 20, 2013

Germany May Have Paid A Price For Its Financial Power

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Germany paid a price for asserting its financial power. Germans, more than others, had to finance bailouts for countries like Greece, and imposed austerity measures in return. Those who disapprove may have struck back. People across the continent and beyond watched the Eurovision song contest.

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