Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney participates in a 6th-grade language arts class with Salina Beattie and other students at Universal Bluford Charter School on Thursday in Philadelphia.
Credit Jeff Brady / NPR
Romney greets a student at Universal Bluford Charter School, where he talked about education policy Thursday.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney was talking about education policy Thursday in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, is a frequent stop for presidential candidates. But, amid a campaign likely to focus on a handful of battleground states, some are starting to wonder if Pennsylvania is still a swing state.
At the Universal Bluford Charter School in a largely African-American neighborhood in West Philadelphia, Romney toured a computer lab, helped students with an assignment in language arts class and listened to the kids sing.
Harold Jackson was a pioneer of black radio. He was the first major African American play-by-play sports announcer, hosted numerous radio shows in New York City and co-founded Inner City Broadcasting. Jackson died Wednesday at the age of 96.
To physician Larry Shore of My Health Medical Group in San Francisco, it's no surprise that patients give doctors low marks for time and attention.
"There's some data to suggest that the average patient gets to speak for between 12 and 15 seconds before the physician interrupts them," Shore says. "And that makes you feel like the person is not listening."
In 2004, singer-songwriter Regina Spektor was a staple of the so-called anti-folk scene when she sat down for one of her first public-radio interviews with the now-defunct WNYC program The Next Big Thing. In the interview, she joked that she stayed up until 3:30 a.m. writing a song, trying not to wake the neighbors, but never wrote anything down.
Muslims (in the foreground) face a group of Christians during a bloody clash in Ambon, the provincial capital of Indonesia's Maluku Island, on Sept. 11, 2011. The riot exposed deep fault lines between Christians and Muslims in Indonesia.
Credit Ulet Ifansasti / Getty Images
Indonesian Catholics pray during a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on April 6, Good Friday, in Klaten, Indonesia.
In the city of Bekasi, Indonesia, outside Jakarta, a handful of Christians head to Sunday worship. But before they can reach their destination, they are stopped and surrounded by a large crowd of local Muslims who jeer at them and demand that they leave.
This is the Filadelfia congregation, a Lutheran group. They are ethnic Bataks from the neighboring island of Sumatra who have migrated to Bekasi, and they have been blocked from holding services on several occasions. Recently, a journalist who demonstrated in support of the congregation was beaten by an angry mob.
Shares of Facebook on Wednesday made up a little of the ground they've lost since the company's troubled stock offering last week. But the company and its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, still face a lot of legal problems.
Some of the investors who bought shares of the company filed a lawsuit alleging that the two companies concealed information about Facebook's expected performance.
Patient Bob Berquist with Gregory Wagner, a doctor in the emergency department. Berquist, who volunteers at Fauquier Hospital, was admitted for low blood sugar when another nurse noticed he seemed dizzy.
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Credit John Rose / NPR
The chefs in the cafeteria try to buy whatever food they can't grow in the garden from farms as close to home as possible.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Lisa Spitzer, a registered nurse, is a Planetree program manager and concierge at Fauquier Hospital. She visits patients and offers a friendly ear and a helping hand.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Patient Bob Berquist with Gregory Wagner, a doctor in the emergency department. Berquist, who volunteers at Fauquier Hospital, was admitted for low blood sugar when another nurse noticed he seemed dizzy.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Twice a week, local seniors in Warrenton, Va., flock to the hospital's cafeteria, called The Bistro, for a meal, a great view and musical accompaniment by a retired piano player from a nearby Nordstrom's.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Each birthing suite is designed for the newborn to remain in the room with the mother, and there is an additional bed in the room for dad, or other care partner.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Family and friends are welcome at the hospital anytime, day or night, and each of the 97 patient rooms is designed as a single-occupancy room with a bed for caregivers to spend the night.
Credit John Rose / NPR
Fauquier Hospital was among the first five hospitals in the nation — and the only one in Virginia — to meet a specific list of criteria that qualifies it as providing truly patient-centered care.
Credit John Rose / NPR
The organic garden outside the hospital supplies the kitchen with fresh vegetables and herbs. Even the wood used for the trellises is untreated so that chemicals don't leach into the garden soil.
But some hospitals around the nation are trying to make their patients' stays a little less unpleasant.
They're members of an organization called Planetree, which was founded by a patient named Angelica Thieriot, who had a not-so-good hospital experience back in the 1970s.
It's time now for your letters. Yesterday, we remembered Eugene Polley, the inventor of the first wireless remote control. He died last weekend at the age of 96. Polley earned 18 U.S. patents in his long career at what was then the Zenith Radio Corporation in Chicago.
JOHN TAYLOR: But he will always be best known as the father of the couch potato.
SIEGEL: That's John Taylor, a spokesman for what is now Zenith Electronics and its parent company, LG Electronics.
A storm is brewing in Washington that could darken political debate for months to come. It's about the debt, the deficit, taxes and spending — all hot topics lawmakers have been fighting about for years now.
This time, though, there's a deadline, and the consequences of inaction would be immediate. That has many in Washington saying: Here we go again.
In the past week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have begun a new round of sparring over the U.S. debt ceiling.
Greece holds parliamentary elections next month because the elections earlier this month failed to produce a governing coalition. The two big parties that had signed on to Europe's austerity terms no longer account for a majority of the seats in parliament. The big new player, coming in second was the Coalition of the Radical Left, or Syriza, which opposes Europe's terms for a bailout, but says Greece should continue to use the euro.
