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4:49pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

Report: Immigration From Mexico To U.S. Comes To Standstill

Credit Pew

The historic wave of migration from Mexico to the United States, which over four decades brought 12 million immigrants to the country, has come to a standstill. That's what a new Pew Hispanic Center study released today found.

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4:41pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Record

Remembering Bert Weedon, Guitar Teacher To Rock Stars (And Many More)

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 7:39 pm

Credit Keystone / Hulton Archive/Getty Images
British guitarist Bert Weedon died Friday at age 91.

4:41pm

Mon April 23, 2012
NPR Story

Teen's Suicide Prompts Anti-Bullying Editorial

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 7:39 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Yesterday, the Sioux City Journal in Iowa did something it had never done before. It devoted the entire front page of its Sunday paper to an editorial. The headline, "We Must Stop Bullying, It Starts Here and It Starts Now." That editorial came soon after a 14-year-old Iowa boy named Kenneth Weishuhn committed suicide. He had been subjected to bullying and death threats after he told friends he was gay.

Mitch Pugh is editor of the Sioux City Journal and he joins me now.

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4:20pm

Mon April 23, 2012
History

Discovery Sparks Interest In Forgotten Black Scholar

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 7:39 pm

Three years ago, just moments before sledgehammers ripped through an abandoned home in Chicago, the head of a demolition crew decided to save the contents of an old steamer trunk stored in the attic.

"They were about to demolish it because they couldn't get it down the stairs," says Rufus McDonald, who gathered what was inside the steamer trunk — documents and old books — and took them to a rare-book dealer in Chicago.

"He said, 'Do you know who this is?' I said, 'Nah, who is it?' He said, 'It's Richard Theodore Greener," McDonald recalls. "I said, 'Who is he?' "

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4:18pm

Mon April 23, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Cancer Doc Brawley Says The U.S. Health Care System Is Sick

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 9:48 am

Credit Chris Hamilton / American Cancer Society
Otis Brawley, M.D., chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

Journalists make for a pretty tough crowd.

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4:01pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Salt

Are Local Salad Greens Safer Than Packaged Salad Greens?

Originally published on Tue April 24, 2012 7:23 am

There were lots of comments on this blog regarding my recent stories about making salads safer. Many of those comments argued that the solution is to grow your own. Or at least buy from local farmers.

Which raises an interesting question: Are salad greens from your local farmer's market actually safer than packaged lettuce from thousands of miles away? And should the same safety rules apply to both?

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3:17pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Picture Show

Are Your Facebook Friends Really Your Friends?

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 10:51 am

Credit Tanja Hollander
Photographer Tanja Hollander is on a mission to make protraits of all of her Facebook friends.

The new issue of The Atlantic asks: Is Facebook Making Us Lonely? The jury's out, though signs point to maybe.

Facebook didn't necessarily make Tanja Hollander lonely, per se, but it did make her curious. It was a little over two years ago when she looked at that number representing "friends," 626 in her case, and started to analyze it.

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2:57pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

Six Men Ask Judge To Overturn Convictions In Notorious D.C. Murder Case

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 3:29 pm

Credit Amanda Steen / NPR
In 1985, Chris Turner was convicted of the murder of Catherine Fuller. After spending decades in prison, Turner is now out on parole; he maintains his innocence. He is shown here in his childhood neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., about 100 yards away from what was Fuller's home.

Six men wearing bright orange prison jumpsuits appeared in a D.C. courtroom today, seeking to overturn their decades-old convictions in a brutal murder by arguing the Justice Department failed to turn over critical evidence that could have helped them assert their innocence.

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2:12pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

Trustees Warn Social Security Is Headed Toward Insolvency

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 4:37 pm

The trustees in charge of nation's Social Security program said a sagging economy has hit the program hard. The program's trust fund, which goes mostly to retirees, said the trustees, will run dry by 2033.

The AP reports "Medicare's finances have stabilized but the program's hospital insurance fund is still projected to run out of money in 2024."

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1:58pm

Mon April 23, 2012
It's All Politics

Romney Backs Extension Of Student Loan Relief

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 3:08 pm

Mitt Romney on Monday endorsed the idea of extending a law that curbs interest rates paid by some recipients of federal student loans, a cause that President Obama has made a campaign issue.

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1:54pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

AP Analysis: Half Of Recent College Grads Are Jobless Or Underemployed

Credit Christopher Furlong / Getty Images
Students from John Moores' University celebrate graduation.

It's hard out there for a college grad.

The AP analyzed government data and came up with this stunning figure: "Half of young college graduates [are] either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge."

The whole story is worth a read, so we encourage you to click over, but here is the meat of the AP's analysis:

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1:13pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

Obama Announces New Sanctions Targeting Syria, Iran

Credit Pool / Getty Images
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

President Obama announced a set of new sanctions that target "Syria and Iran and the 'digital guns for hire' who help them oppress their people with surveillance software and monitoring technology," the AFP reports.

The president made the announcement during a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. His visit was the first as president.

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12:21pm

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

DARPA Explains Crash Of Hypersonic Glider

Credit AFP/Getty Images
This US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(DARPA) artists rendering shows the Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle 2 (HTV-2).

The forces on the unmanned hypersonic glider tested last summer by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) were so great that large parts of its skin peeled off causing its emergency system to plunge it into the ocean.

As we reported last August, the Falcon HTV-2 "was shot up on a rocket and right at the edge of space, it separated and glided through the atmosphere at 13,000 mph."

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12:16pm

Mon April 23, 2012
World Cafe

Young Man On 'World Cafe: Next'

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 5:06 pm

Credit Kristianna Smith
Young Man, a.k.a. Colin Caulfield.

Young Man is Colin Caulfield, a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and producer of light yet deft indie-pop. While studying French and English at Loyola, Caulfield began putting cover songs on YouTube, and his lithe, lo-fi music soon drew comparisons to Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear.

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12:04pm

Mon April 23, 2012
Politics

Green Jobs Guru Back To Energize Progressive Base?

Activist Van Jones served as special adviser to President Obama on green jobs. He resigned in 2009 after media reports questioned his beliefs about the 9/11 attacks. Now, Jones is back with a new book, Rebuild the Dream, outlining his vision for the progressive movement. He speaks with host Michel Martin.

11:52am

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

VIDEO: Space Out With NASA's 'Walking On Air'

Credit NASA.gov
From NASA's 'Walking on Air' video, a view of an aurora from space.

If you're into images of Earth taken from space, NASA has a new video for you. Called Walking on Air, it "features a series of time lapse sequences photographed by the Expedition 30 crew aboard the International Space Station" and is set to the song Walking in the Air by Howard Blake.

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11:28am

Mon April 23, 2012
Planet Money

What America Owes In Student Loans

Originally published on Mon November 26, 2012 8:42 pm

Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

11:28am

Mon April 23, 2012
World Cafe

World Cafe Looks Back: Uncle Tupelo's Family Tree

Credit Jim Leatherman

Uncle Tupelo at the Sapphire Supper Club in Orlando, Fla. Jeff Tweedy (second from left) went on to form Wilco, while Jay Farrar (second from right) created Son Volt.

Throughout the month of October, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of World Cafe and revisited some of the best and most memorable interviews of the past 20 years.

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11:20am

Mon April 23, 2012
Movie Interviews

Jack Black: On Music, Mayhem And Murder

Originally published on Mon April 23, 2012 11:59 am

Credit Deana Newcomb / Wind Dancer Films
In Bernie, Jack Black plays a local mortician who murders his live-in companion after she won't stop nagging him. The movie is based on a true story.

Actor Jack Black is best known for his comedic performances in films like Nacho Libre and School of Rock. In his latest film, Bernie, Black goes to a darker place: He plays a serious small-town funeral director who uncharacteristically murders his live-in companion, a wealthy widow played by Shirley MacLaine.

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11:00am

Mon April 23, 2012
The Two-Way

U.S., Afghan Security Pact Is Sweeping But Not Specific

Credit David Gilkey / NPR
U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan last June.

While the headlines proclaim that thanks to a new draft agreement the U.S. will continue to defend Afghanistan for a decade after the planned 2014 withdrawal of foreign combat forces from that country, the stories themselves make clear that many of the key details remain to be worked out:

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