NPR News

Marines Reflect On Duty, Death In Afghanistan

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 1:16pm

When the Marines of "America's Battalion" first arrived in Afghanistan, they were eager to get into the fight against the Taliban. Now, as they wrap up their seven-month deployment — and after the loss of a dozen comrades — they see warfare in a different light.

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Evidence-Based Medicine: Hard For Some To Swallow

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 1:07pm

Based on studies, two panels of medical experts this week recommended fewer screening tests for breast and cervical cancer. But people don't always want to do what the data say to do.

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Obscured By War, Water Crisis Looms In Yemen

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 12:56pm

News from Yemen has been dominated recently by an escalating rebellion along the border with Saudi Arabia. But the country has been making news for decades because of its severe overuse of a rapidly disappearing water supply, the result of natural and political causes.

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'Botax' In Senate Health Bill Upsets Plastic Surgeons

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 12:38pm

Levies on liposuction, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures would generate billions of dollars to help cover the uninsured.

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Record Rainfall Wreaks Havoc In Britain, Ireland

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 12:35pm

Raging floods engulfed northern England's Lake District on Friday, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes. In Ireland, more than 3 feet of water shut down the center of the country's second-largest city, Cork, and more than a dozen other towns and villages.

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Peruvian Police Say Gang Killed People For Their Fat

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 12:08pm

Police arrested three members of a gang in the Peruvian jungle that allegedly has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics. Medical experts expressed doubt about an international black market for human fat, though it does have cosmetic applications.

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In Massillon, High School Football Is 'Who We Are'

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 11:16am

The Ohio school has a 20,000-seat stadium, a $3 million indoor practice facility and a live tiger for a mascot. Massillon teams have won 22 state championships and they're in the running for another one. It's football "sunup to sundown," the head coach says.

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Senate Ethics Committee: No Punishment For Burris

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 9:26am

The Senate Ethics Committee on Friday admonished Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., for making "inconsistent, misleading or incomplete" statements about the circumstances surrounding his appointment to the seat once held by Barack Obama. The committee didn't recommend any punishment.

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Senate Health Bill Faces Saturday Showdown

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 8:42am

Democrats will need to vote in lockstep to overcome GOP opposition in a key procedural vote to move the $848 billion measure to full debate. But it's not yet clear whether Majority Leader Harry Reid can round up enough support.

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Price Fight: Coke Isn't It At Costco

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 5:01am

If you're a member of Costco, the nation's largest wholesale club, you may be surprised to learn that Coca-Cola's products are no longer on the shelves. The two companies are locked in a rare public dispute over the price consumers pay for beverages.

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Students Rail Against University Of California Fees

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 4:47am

UC regents, meeting at UCLA, approved fees that will bring the average annual cost to about $10,300 — a threefold increase in a decade. In protest, University of California Berkeley students barricaded themselves in part of a campus building on Friday.

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Suicide Motorcycle Bomber Kills 16 In Afghanistan

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 4:33am

Two children and a policeman were among those killed in the blast, which wounded at least 23 others when the motorcyclist detonated the explosives in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, officials said.

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New Guidelines Issued On Cervical Cancer Screening

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 3:00am

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued new guidelines for cervical cancer screening — delaying the start of Pap smears for young women and cutting back on the frequency of the tests. The guidelines were announced just days after a different group caused a furor by recommending that most women wait until they're 50 to start getting mammograms.

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Senate Tries To Strike Balance On Abortion Language

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 3:00am

The fight over health care has moved to the Senate, and that means the fight over abortion is there as well. Earlier this month, the House passed legislation that would ban federal funding of abortion, but most Democrats say it went too far. Can the Senate's version find a compromise?

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Students Protest University Of Calif. Fee Hike

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 3:00am

Thousands of University of California students converged on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles Thursday, as regents adopted a 30 percent fee hike. It's one of the latest signs of California's continuing economic crisis. UC officials say, faced with a huge deficit of their own, they have no choice but to raise the fees. Many students say they can't afford to pay more.

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Pelosi: Obama Needs Room To Make Afghan Decision

NPR Top Stories - November 20, 2009 - 2:18am

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says she believes a health-care bill will pass, despite fierce debate over language about abortion. She tells Renee Montagne that when it comes to Afghanistan, she doesn't sense wide support among House members for a significant troop increase. Pelosi says she's asked members to give President Obama room to decide his Afghan strategy.

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Hard Lessons From Two Mass Killings In Texas

NPR Top Stories - November 19, 2009 - 11:49pm

The Senate is conducting hearings into the recent shootings at Fort Hood — a tragedy that took place just miles from the site of a deadly 1991 attack. That episode, in which a gunman killed 23 people at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, reshaped how police, medical and psychological personnel respond to such tragedies.

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Fungus Provides Clues To North American Extinctions

NPR Top Stories - November 19, 2009 - 10:33pm

One of the great mysteries about North America is what killed off woolly mammoths and other exotic animals that roamed the land after the last ice age. Ideas have ranged from a comet impact and climate change to human hunters. A study published Friday in Science Magazine provides new clues about this — cleverly deduced from samples of a fungus that grew on the animal's dung.

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Black Males Hit Extra Hard By Unemployment

NPR Top Stories - November 19, 2009 - 9:01pm

The country's spiraling unemployment rate continues to take a particular toll on men. The "he-cession," as it's sometimes called, has hit African-American men especially hard, increasing their unemployment rate to more than 17 percent last month.

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Army Relents; Allows Limited Media At Palin Event

NPR Top Stories - November 19, 2009 - 4:28pm

Army officials had said they would prohibit coverage of Palin's on-post event, saying it would turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama.

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