|
Book News: Lydia Davis Wins Man Booker International Prize Also: Amazon to begin publishing fan fiction; Paul Ryan and Elizabeth Warren are writing books; Keith Richards' exorbitant library fines. |
|
'We Will Never Give In To Terror,' Britain's Cameron Vows A British soldier was hacked to death on a busy south London street Wednesday. Witnesses say the two attackers claimed to be acting in revenge for the deaths of Muslims. Authorities are praising the heroism of women who confronted the attackers. |
|
Funerals Begin In Tornado-Ravaged Moore, Okla. Among the first to be remembered will be 9-year-old Antonia Candelaria, one of 7 children killed at their elementary school. She and her best friend, Emily Conatzer, were holding on to each other when they both died. |
|
Losers In Chicago School Closings Target Elected Officials The Chicago school board on Wednesday voted to close dozens of schools, despite community protests that the closings disproportionately affect minority students. The Chicago Teachers Union and community activists plan to show their disapproval by campaigning against elected officials who disagreed with them. |
|
Obama Group's Climate Push Puts President Under Scrutiny   Organizing for Action — a group that formed out of President Obama's re-election campaign — has focused its ire on Republicans it calls "climate change deniers." But some environmentalists are frustrated with the president himself on issues like the Keystone pipeline. |
|
Living In Two Worlds, But With Just One Language Elysha O'Brien calls herself a "Mexican white girl." Not just because of her ethnically ambiguous appearance, she says, but also because she can't speak Spanish. Fearing their children would experience discrimination if they spoke Spanish, her parents chose not to teach them their native tongue. |
|
Sick Inmates Dying Behind Bars Despite Release Program Federal prisoners can request compassionate release if they are terminally ill, but a recent investigation found that many die while their requests drift through the system. Now, prison leaders say they will simplify the approval process and start tracking requests electronically. |
|
Judge: Unredeemed Borders Gift Cards Are Worthless A Manhattan judge upholds a lower court ruling that $210 million worth of unredeemed gift cards from the defunct book chain are no longer valid. |
|
Lois Lerner's Brief And Awful Day On Capitol Hill The IRS bureaucrat showed up long enough at a House hearing into the scandal engulfing her agency to declare her innocence and her constitutional right to say no more. |
|
Teachers In Moore Gather For 'Sharing And Healing' What was billed as an informational meeting turned into a counseling session and a chance to recognize principals, teachers and support staff who stepped up in the crisis. |
|
In Raw Milk Case, Activists See Food Freedom On Trial Activists say the case against Wisconsin dairy farmer Vernon Hershberger is about raw milk — and much more. His supporters have turned the case into a rallying cry for personal food freedom and the rights of farmers and consumers to enter into private contracts without government intervention. |
|
Holder Acknowledges U.S. Citizens Killed In Drone Strikes For the first time, the Justice Department admits that it targeted American-born al-Qaida leader Anwar al-Awlaki and that three other U.S. citizens have died in drone strikes. |
|
Think Obama's In Trouble? That Depends On Your Party Despite the scandals consuming Washington, the president's job approval ratings remain steady. Why? Reaction is breaking along partisan lines, with Democrats inclined to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. |
|
Scientific Tooth Fairies Investigate Neanderthal Breast-Feeding Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, breast-feed their offspring for several years. Some baby orangutans nurse until they are 7 years old. Researchers found a way to test ancient teeth for clues about when humans cut nursing short. |
|
North Korea Sends Special Envoy To China Amid Tensions The trip comes as relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have soured over North Korea's nuclear program and the recent seizure of Chinese fisherman. |
|
Fears Of Killing Immigration Bill Doomed Same-Sex Amendment Amid warnings the proposal would shatter support for the measure, Democrats backed away from a provision that would allow gay U.S. citizens to sponsor foreign-born spouses for green cards. Advocates for gay and lesbian immigration rights accused Democrats of caving in to threats. |
|
British Driver Says She's Sorry In 'Twit And Run' Case A British driver who struck a cyclist with her car — and who then bragged about the incident on Twitter — has issued an apology. The incident caused an uproar after the collision Sunday. |
|
Could African Crops Be Improved With Private Biotech Data? A plant scientist at Mars Inc. has appealed to the world's biggest life sciences companies to help him — by sharing what they already know about 100 crops that could provide better nutrition in Africa. But can the kings of agricultural intellectual property get onboard with open source agricultural information for Africa? |
|
A Decade In The Making, West Bank Barrier Is Nearly Complete Despite much international criticism, Israel has continued building its West Bank barrier. It's now nearing completion, while the Israelis and Palestinians continue to argue over whether it will help or hurt prospects for a Middle East peace agreement. |
|
The First Web Page, Amazingly, Is Lost Ironically, there's one piece of Web history that can't be found online: the very first page. Now, a team at the lab where the World Wide Web was born is on a hunt for old hard drives and floppy disks that might hold copies of the missing files. |
|
Scandal Politics: The Downstream Effect The trio of scandals that have engulfed the White House may not be big news by 2014, but now is the time when prospective candidates must decide if they want to be on the ballot. Is the news of the moment hurting the effort? |
|
Costa Concordia Captain To Face Manslaughter Charges Capt. Francesco Schettino is accused of negligence that led to the grounding of the ship and of abandoning the stricken vessel while a rescue of its more than 4,200 passengers and crew was still underway. |
|
London Attack Deemed Likely Terrorist Incident  The incident occurred Wednesday when the suspects attacked the man near a London military barracks. |
|
Polio Outbreak In Kenya: A Threat To Global Eradication A handful of polio infections in Kenya and Somalia could set back efforts to wipe out the virus worldwide, health workers warned Wednesday. The last time there was polio in this region, the virus spread throughout the Horn of Africa into the Middle East and eventually into Indonesia. |
|
Oregon's Cash-Strapped Counties Reject Public Safety Levies Two Oregon counties have reportedly rejected property tax increases that would have funded law enforcement and public safety services. The counties once received federal timber subsidies, but those days are over — and now they're scrambling to pay for essential services. |
|
Go East, Young Marijuana Dealer A San Francisco dealer quadrupled his income by moving to New York after California legalized medical marijuana. |
|
Riots In Sweden. That's Right. Sweden Sweden has a global reputation as a smoothly run, harmonious nation. But following the death of an immigrant, three nights of rioting have prompted some soul-searching. |
|
Male Sergeant May Have Filmed Female Cadets At West Point The sergeant has been accused of secretly videotaping at least a dozen female cadets, sometimes when they were showering. The New York Times report follows a series of accounts in recent weeks about alleged sexual assaults within the military. |
|
Research Reveals Yeasty Beasts Living On Our Skin While studying microorganisms on humans is not new, tracking fungi is. In a census of sorts, scientists checked the skin of healthy volunteers. They found an expansive ecosystem of silent inhabitants. |
|
China's Artist Provocateur Explores New Medium: Heavy Metal In 2011, police detained Ai Weiwei for 81 days. Now, he's released a song that's turned the experience into a heavy metal protest song, along with a dystopian nightmare video. The lyrics are explicit and angry. Ai says his music is for the many political prisoners who remain jailed. |
|
The Argument For Stop-And-Frisk Arguments in a court challenge against New York's stop-and-frisk policy wrapped up earlier this week. Critics say the policy promotes racial profiling. But host Michel Martin speaks with Heidi Grossman, New York City's lead attorney in the trial, to hear the Police Department's side of the story. |
|
Sandy Hook's Future: What's To Become Of The School? It's been over five months since the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut. And there have been plenty of opinions about what should be done with the school building. Host Michel Martin speaks with Rich Harwood about the emotional decision-making process. |
|
Joplin, Mo. Advice For Oklahomans: 'Hold On To Hope' As Moore, Oklahoma continues to recover after this week's deadly tornado, survivors of the 2011 Joplin, Missouri tornado are marking the second anniversary of that disaster today. Host Michel Martin discusses Joplin's recovery, and what lessons it might hold for Oklahoma, with Joplin Mayor Melodee Colbert Kean and school superintendent C.J. Huff. |
|
Libya 'Talking Points' Emails Put Petraeus Back In Spotlight The role former CIA Director David Petraeus played in creating the discredited U.S. "talking points" about the violence in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, including a U.S. ambassador, last year is under new scrutiny, as a Washington Post story suggests that Petraeus sought to shape the resulting memo to favor his agency. |
|
Photos: Recovery Begins In Tornado-Hit Area The powerful tornado flattened entire blocks in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore. Early Wednesday, the death toll remained at 24, with scores more people injured and displaced. |
|
Bernanke Hints That The Economy Still Needs Help The Fed chairman cautioned Wednesday that if interest rates were to start rising now, the economy could slump. Meanwhile, the National Association of Realtors said sales of existing homes rose — and would have been even stronger if not for tight inventory. |
|
Fifteen Years After A Vaccine Scare, A Measles Epidemic A measles epidemic in Wales that has infected more than 1,000 people is the fallout from a fraudulent paper linking the vaccine and autism published almost 15 years ago, health officials say. Many of the children and teenagers sick with measles were never vaccinated. |
|
'I Have Not Done Anything Wrong,' Key IRS Official Says Lois Lerner, who's at the center of the political firestorm over her agency's singling out of some conservative groups for extra scrutiny, invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to answer questions from Congress. |
|
How Genomics Solved The Mystery Of Ireland's Great Famine Although scientists have known that a funguslike organism caused the potato blight that triggered the Great Famine in Ireland in the 1840s, they didn't know which strain was the culprit. But they do now, thanks to the genes in some 19th century potato samples. |
|
Oklahoma's Gov. Fallin On Lifesaving, Recovery Efforts David Greene talks to Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin about the cleanup and recovery efforts in her state after Monday's tornado that devastated the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore. |
|
Man Killed By FBI In Florida Was Linked To Boston Suspect A friend of the man killed Wednesday in Orlando says the FBI was questioning the man about his connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the men suspected of planting the bombs in Boston. |
|
Eric Garcetti Wins L.A. Mayor's Race In a nonpartisan race in which two Democrats were the top contenders, the city councilman has edged out City Controller Wendy Greuel. |
|
Anthony Weiner Jumps Into Race To Be NYC Mayor  The former congressman's career appeared to be over when he resigned in 2011 because of an extramarital sexting scandal and his lies about it. Now, he tells voters, "I've made some big mistakes. ... I hope I get a second chance to work for you." The Democratic primary is set for Sept. 10. |
|
Book News: Newly Found Pearl Buck Novel To Be Published This Fall Also: shameless book blurbs; new plays from Ayad Ahktar; and a first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone draws a record price at auction. |
|
In Oklahoma, Rescue Efforts Give Way To Recovery Officials think they've found all the survivors, and victims, of the massive tornado that devastated the community of Moore. The official death toll stands at 24. More than 230 people are said to have been injured. |
|
Why Apple (And Lots Of Other Companies) Wound Up In Ireland It goes back to a single page in a report written decades ago by U.S. consultants, and funded by the U.S. State Department. |
|
West Bank Businesses Seek Growth Amid Uncertainty Political unpredictability in the region hampers all kinds of businesses: from stone-cutters and shoemakers to IT. Business owners in the West Bank say Secretary of State John Kerry's commitment to remove barriers to commerce might go further than actual cash. |
|
Quantum Or Not, New Supercomputer Is Certainly Something Else NASA and Google have come together to buy a new kind of computer that the manufacturer says runs on the strange laws of quantum mechanics. But some physicists counter that the machine, known as the D-Wave Two, has never demonstrated a phenomenon known as "quantum entanglement." |
|
Instead Of Snoozing In Savings, Let's Put $5,000 To Work It's a hard time to be a saver. The return on a savings account doesn't even keep up with inflation, and that has led many savers to ask: What should I do with my money? NPR's Uri Berliner takes $5,000 out of his own personal savings and explores various investment opportunities. |
|
Boomer Housemates Have More Fun Some single baby boomers are moving into group houses, a college-era solution to their modern needs. Housemates share costs, socialize, and cheer each other on through life's thick and thin. |
