NPR News

Pages

The Two-Way
11:00 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Obama Picks North Carolina To Win Men's Basketball Championship

Credit Gregory Shamus / Getty Images
President Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron were courtside in Dayton, Ohio, Tuesday at the "play in" game between Western Kentucky and Mississippi Valley State. Western Kentucky won, 59-58.

After two years of going with the wrong team to win it all, President Obama is counting on North Carolina — the team he correctly picked to win the 2009 NCAA men's basketball championship — to end up No. 1 this year.

As he has each year since taking office, the president spent time with ESPN going over his bracket for the tournament.

Read more
Book Reviews
10:50 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Two Books That Delight In New York City's Dirt

Originally published on Mon March 19, 2012 10:50 am

Some years ago I was visiting Disneyland and had a culture-clash encounter there with my one of fellow Americans. I was standing with my daughter on the miles-long meandering line for "It's a Small World After All" and I fell into a conversation with another mom; when this woman found out I was a native New Yorker, she treated me to her verdict on the city: "It's so dirty there!"

Read more
Television
10:46 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Traveling To The Corners Of Our 'Frozen Planet'

Credit Jeff Wilson / Discovery Channel/BBC
An Adelie penguin male builds a stone nest in anticipation of the females' arrival. The males compete over the precious stones, often resorting to stealing to get the best ones.

I don't want to complain about Frozen Planet, however, until I dish out a little praise.

Read more
Book Reviews
10:40 am
Wed March 14, 2012

'Coral Glynn': The Art Of Repression

I was in my local independent bookstore last week, enjoying the endangered pleasure of wandering around and snuffling through interesting-looking books when I overheard two women talking in front of the new releases section. "I need a new British novelist," one of them said. Ladies, I should have spoken up, but the moment passed and, besides, it was too awkward to explain that the one of the best British novelists writing today was born in New Jersey.

Read more
The Two-Way
9:50 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Editor's Obituary Takes Tawdry Twist

Originally published on Wed March 14, 2012 9:51 am

After Oregonian editorial page editor Bob Caldwell died Saturday, the report from the newspaper on Sunday said he had suffered a heart attack.

That does appear to be the 63-year-old journalist's cause of death. But the circumstances surrounding his last moments were considerably more complicated.

Read more
Shots - Health Blog
9:45 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Fatty Foods Bad For Sperm

Credit Robert Byron / iStockphoto.com
Eating foods high in saturated fat may increase fertility problems in men, a preliminary study finds.

Men who eat a lot of fatty foods have lower quality sperm than men who avoid them, a new study found.

Saturated fat, the stuff in meat and dairy foods, was associated with lower sperm counts. The men eating the most saturated fat had 35 percent fewer sperm than men eating the least.

On the bright side, the men who ate more omega-3 fats — the kind found in fish and some plants — had slightly more sperm that were correctly formed than their brethren who ate less.

Read more
The Challenges Of A Nuclear Iran
9:37 am
Wed March 14, 2012

The Debate Over Bombing Nuclear Facilities In Iran

Iran said Tuesday that it was unwilling to allow international nuclear inspectors to have complete access to a restricted military complex, called Parchin, which is near the capital Tehran. There are concerns that the complex may contain a facility designed to test explosives meant to trigger a nuclear chain reaction.

Read more
It's All Politics
9:01 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Santorum Gains Momentum, And The GOP Slog Continues

Credit Sean Gardner / Getty Images
After Rick Santorum won primaries in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, he addressed supporters in Louisiana, which holds its primary on March 24.

Rick Santorum won two Southern state GOP presidential primaries Tuesday, embarassing Mitt Romney who had predicted he'd take one.

Second-place finisher Newt Gingrich vowed to fight on to Tampa, tag teaming Romney along with Santorum. The "three-way dynamic," as he put it, is a winner for Gingrich and, perhaps, his dream of deal-making at the convention, and for Romney, too, whose Southern result could have been much worse if he'd been posting up against Santorum alone.

Read more
The Two-Way
8:40 am
Wed March 14, 2012

Boston's Back Bay Slowly Recovering After Smoky Fire Causes Chaos

Credit Bianca Vazquez Toness / WBUR
The smoke over Boston from Tuesday's electrical fire.
  • WBUR's Bianca Vazquez Toness
  • NPR's Tovia Smith

Repair crews are working this morning to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses in Boston's Back Bay district, "after two transformers caught fire Tuesday night, knocking out power" and sending think black smoke billowing over the area, our colleagues at WBUR report.

Read more

Pages