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4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Business

Business News

Apple CEO Tim Cook has flown in to China to meet with government leaders. He's trying to work out issues ranging from trademark concerns to treatment of local factory workers who make Apple products.

4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
NPR Story

21st Century Vietnam Leaves War In The Past

Hanoi, Hue, Danang and Saigon, were city names that were stamped on the American psyche a half-century ago, when the U.S. waged war in Vietnam. The once war-torn, Southeast Asian nation has made great strides to leave its troubled past behind.

4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Business

Jobs Act Could Expand Funding For Start-Ups

Lawmakers in the House are expected to vote on a jobs act Tuesday. Part of the legislation would allow the public to make investments in start-up companies and small businesses. These companies could raise money online or through social networks. The bill would lift SEC regulations that restrict soliciting investors.

4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Religion

Pope To Meet With Cuban President Raul Castro

Pope Benedict is in Cuba, Latin America's least Catholic country. He arrived Monday in Santiago, where Cuba's revolution began in 1953. He urged Cubans to seek unity and overcome their divisions, but his message wasn't especially political.

4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Around the Nation

Alternative Banking Groups Aid Occupy Movement

Originally published on Tue March 27, 2012 11:44 am

Credit Damian Dovarganes / AP
Occupy L.A. activists rally outside the Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles in February. The Occupy protests around the country have inspired two working groups that are attempting to reform the banking system and create an alternative bank.

Groups within the Occupy Wall Street movement are trying to overhaul the banking system and even dream of creating a new kind of bank.

Occupy isn't in the headlines so much these days, but work continues behind the scenes. The Alternative Banking Group of Occupy Wall Street meets weekly in different places. Members are older than some might think — in their 30s, 40s and 50s — and many work or formerly worked in the financial industry.

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4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Business

Harrisburg Residents May Foot Police Bill

The Pennsylvania capital Harrisburg is more than $300 million in debt. The budget is controlled by a state-appointed custodian. City and law enforcement services are under strain and residents worry violent crime may be growing.

4:00am

Tue March 27, 2012
Business

The Last Word In Business

Originally published on Tue March 27, 2012 7:20 am

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And our last word in business today is: billion euro real estate. That's how much artist Frank Buckley's Dublin apartment cost. In theory, he actually got the materials for free from Ireland's central bank.

The walls, furniture and detailing in his apartment are all made from bricks of shredded euro notes. Buckley estimates each brick contains 40 or 50,000 euro's worth.

FRANK BUCKLEY: I collected two trailer-fulls of shredded notes - 1.4 billion euro.

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12:01am

Tue March 27, 2012
National Security

For U.S. Analysts, Rethinking The Terror Threat

Credit Joji Thomas / AP
U.S. officials are looking more closely for signs of state-sponsored terrorism these days. In this attack, Israel blamed Iran for bombing a car belonging to the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi, India, on Feb. 13. The wife of an Israeli diplomat was injured. Iran denied it was involved.

There has been a subtle shift taking place in the intelligence community in recent months.

Intelligence and law enforcement officials say analysts and experts who have been tracking al-Qaida for more than a decade have been quietly reassigned. Some are being moved completely out of al-Qaida units. Others are being asked to spend less time watching al-Qaida and more time tracking more traditional foes — like state-sponsored terrorists.

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12:01am

Tue March 27, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Justices Tackle The Big Question: Can Congress Force You To Buy Insurance?

Originally published on Wed June 27, 2012 4:24 pm

Credit Adam Cole / NPR
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will consider whether Congress can require people to buy health insurance.

The U.S. Supreme Court gets to the heart of the health care arguments Tuesday. Almost exactly two years after Congress passed the Obama health care overhaul, the justices are hearing legal arguments testing the constitutionality of the so-called health care mandate — so-called because those words actually do not appear in the law.

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12:01am

Tue March 27, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Uninsured Will Still Need The Money To Meet The Mandate

Originally published on Tue March 27, 2012 8:34 am

Credit Seth Wenig / AP
A bulletin board in New York's Jamaica Hospital offers advice for uninsured patients.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court hears its second day of testimony about the Affordable Care Act. At issue is a central tenet of that law: whether it's legal to require individuals to purchase health care.

But apart from the legal debate, there are questions about the economics of the mandate. Some — like Peggy Bodner of Portland, Ore. — worry it may be difficult to find the money to pay for health insurance, even with government subsidies.

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12:01am

Tue March 27, 2012
Movies

'October Baby' Tells A Story Hollywood Wouldn't

October Baby tells the story of 19-year-old Hannah, a first-year college student, who leaves home on a search for her birth mother. In many ways, it's a Hollywood-style road trip movie dealing with questions of identity, but at the movie's core is also a vigorous message about abortion.

In one scene, Hannah tracks down a nurse who worked at the health clinic where her birth mother had sought an abortion — one that failed when Hannah was born prematurely.

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12:01am

Tue March 27, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

In Haiti, Bureaucratic Delays Stall Mass Cholera Vaccinations

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 10:56 am

A hundred thousand people in Haiti are ready and waiting to get vaccinated against cholera.

The vaccine is sitting in coolers. Vaccination teams are all trained. Willing recipients are registered and entered into databases.

The impending mass vaccination project aims to show that vaccinating against cholera is feasible in Haiti. It has never been done in the midst of an ongoing cholera epidemic. So far, more than 530,000 Haitians have fallen ill with cholera, and more than 7,000 have died.

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6:44pm

Mon March 26, 2012
The Two-Way

'Decorah Eagle Cam:' A Beak Breaks Through First Egg

Credit Raptor Resource Project
A close up view of mom, on the nest in Decorah, Iowa.

A quick update on the Decorah Bald Eagle cam that we've been keeping track of and became quite the sensation last year.

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5:55pm

Mon March 26, 2012
It's All Politics

Outside The Court, Protesters Face-off Over 'Obamacare'

Credit John Rose / NPR
Amid a crowd of Tea Party activists, a supporter of President Obama's health care overhaul displays a sign outside the Supreme Court on Monday.

As U.S. Supreme Court justices opened their historic three-day hearing of arguments on President Obama's health care plan, hundreds of protesters from across the country flocked outside the court singing, chanting and arguing with one another.

Supporters and opponents of the law engaged in a sing-song call-and-response debate just in front of the court's towering marble steps.

"We love Obamacare!" shouted supporters.

"No, we don't!" responded members of the Tea Party Patriots, one of the most vocal and disapproving groups of the law present at the court Monday.

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5:36pm

Mon March 26, 2012
The Two-Way

After Failed R-Rating Appeal, Bullying Documentary Will Be Released Unrated

Credit Lee Hirsch / The Weinstein Company
Alex, one of the kids who struggles with bullies in Lee Hirsch's documentary Bully.

The documentary Bully will be released unrated.

The decision from the Weinstein Company comes after a very public appeal for the Motion Picture Association of America to overturn its decision to give the bullying documentary an R-rating, which meant anyone younger than 17 would not be permitted without a parent.

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5:36pm

Mon March 26, 2012
The Salt

Does A Chocolate Habit Help Keep You Lean?

Credit Philippe Huguen / AFP/Getty Images
Researchers say some compounds in cocoa may help us fend off fat.

A new study finds that people who eat chocolate several times a week are actually leaner than people who don't eat chocolate regularly.

Really, we asked? Last time we checked chocolate was loaded with fat and sugar. But this new research, along with some prior studies, suggests chocolate may favorably influence metabolism.

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5:30pm

Mon March 26, 2012
It's All Politics

Santorum Would Consider VP Offer From Romney, Man He Daily Derides

If on winning the Republican presidential nomination Mitt Romney needs a vice presidential running mate with the proven ability to use a New York Times correspondent as a rhetorical punching bag, Rick Santorum could be available.

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4:43pm

Mon March 26, 2012
The Two-Way

Sarkozy Says France Will Bar Some Muslim Clerics

In the aftermath of the Toulouse shootings, French President Nicholas Sarkozy said his country would bar some Muslim clerics from entering the country.

According to Al Arabiya, Sarkozy said he spoke to the Emir of Qatar to request that Yousef Al-Qarwadi, an Egyptian who is considered one of the most prominent Sunni Muslim clerics, not be allowed to travel to France.

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4:33pm

Mon March 26, 2012
Middle East

Saudi Institute Seeks To Build A Bridge To The West

Credit EPA/Landov
Under King Abdullah's rule, Saudi Arabia has gradually opened up to the West. The country recently established its first institute to study the West. Here, the king is shown at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, on Dec. 19.

When Fahad A. Alhomoudi was studying for his doctorate in Islamic studies at Canada's McGill University in 2000, he discovered something that bothered him.

"There is, in almost every American and European university, a center for Middle Eastern or Islamic or Arab studies," the Saudi professor recalled in a recent interview in his office in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. "But there was not a single center with a focus on the West in the Middle East."

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4:28pm

Mon March 26, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Reading Between The Lines Of Monday's Supreme Court Arguments

Credit John Rose / NPR
Demonstrators in support of President Obama's health care overhaul march outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday opened three days of oral arguments over the constitutionality of the insurance requirement embedded in President Obama's landmark health care law with a simple question and an obscure 1867 law.

The question: Does the court even have the right to hear the health care challenge, given that the Anti-Injunction Act prevents federal courts from taking cases where taxpayers are trying to prevent the government from "assessing or collecting" taxes?

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