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4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Africa

Viral Video Educates World On Ugandan War Lord

The American non-profit group Invisible Children aims to raise awareness about Ugandan war lord Joseph Kony. A video the group made has gone viral on the Internet. Steve Inskeep talks to Barbara Among, a journalist with Uganda's Daily Monitor, to find out what Ugandans think of the campaign.

4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Election 2012

Kansas Is Up Next With GOP Nominating Contest

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Kansas holds its Republican presidential caucuses tomorrow. Rick Santorum has been the most active candidate in that state. He's trying to stop Mitt Romney's momentum again. Kansas Public Radio's Stephen Koranda has more.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick...

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4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Election 2012

Miss. Gov. Bryant Endorses Mitt Romney

Alabama and Mississippi are holding Republican primaries on Tuesday. The contests are vitally important for the candidacies of Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Mitt Romney arrived in Mississippi Thursday night for a rally, and he has a pair of events in Mississippi and Alabama Friday.

4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Economy

Employment Opportunities Grow, Layoffs Decline

Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 11:09 am

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm Steve Inkseep. Let's follow up on today's unemployment report. The Labor Department says unemployment stayed where it was, 8.3 percent, but the economy created 227,000 new jobs net.

And we're going to talk about that with NPR's Yuki Noguchi. She's in our studies. Yuki, good morning.

YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.

INSKEEP: What stands out here for you?

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4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Business

Legendary Guitar Maker Fender Files For IPO

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Here's one more sales pitch for you. Today's last word in business is your chance to buy a legendary brand.

Fender made guitars held by everyone from Buddy Holly to Jimi Hendrix to Bruno Mars - and maybe even smashed by a few of them. And now Fender has filed paperwork for an initial public offering. The company is looking to raise some $200 million. This company, based in California, wants to pay down debt, and get into new markets like India and China.

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4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Business

Gamer Double Fine Works Around Publishers

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

This week, San Francisco is hosting the Game Developers Conference. It's the largest global event for the industry that makes video and online games. Twenty thousand people from one hundred countries are there right now. And a game that hasn't even been created yet is getting lots of attention.

From member station KQED in San Francisco, Aarti Shahani reports.

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4:00am

Fri March 9, 2012
Business

Wal-Mart Ads Targets Regional Grocer Harris Teeter

In North Carolina, Wal-Mart has unveiled a new ad campaign in the Charlotte area. The ads are unusual because they target the small, regional grocery chain Harris Teeter. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. Harris Teeter is 207th. In the commercials, Wal-Mart says it sells the same items as the local chain, but for less.

3:53am

Fri March 9, 2012
The Picture Show

Before And After: Japan's Wreckage And Recovery

Credit Toru Yamanaka and Roslan Rahman / AFP/Getty Images
Yuko Sugimoto (right) stands reunited with her 5-year-old son, Raito, on a road in Japan's Miyagi prefecture, 2012. This photo was taken at the same place where she was photographed immediately after the tsunami in March 2011.

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. (JST) Japan changed as a nation. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the largest to ever hit the island nation, and subsequent tsunami claimed more than 16,000 lives. One year later, the recovery efforts continue, as does the mourning.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
The Two-Way

Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes Is Buying 'The New Republic'

Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 11:09 am

Credit www.tnr.com

Social media meets old media:

Saying that he's convinced "the demand for long-form, quality journalism is strong in our country," Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he's buying The New Republic.

That's a magazine, as Steve says, which is four times older than its new owner. Hughes is 28.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
History

Girl Scouts: 100 Years Of Blazing New Trails

Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 11:09 am

It's hard to imagine Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and Lucille Ball as part of the same club. But they were all, at one time, Girl Scouts. Founded 100 years ago in Savannah, Ga., the Girl Scouts now count 3.2 million members.

Girl Scout cookies have become as much of an American tradition as apple pie. At a busy intersection in Brookline, Mass., a gaggle of Girl Scouts stand behind a folding table piled high with boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and Shortbreads.

"They are really, really good," the troop collectively assures a prospective buyer.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
Rebuilding Japan

Trauma, Not Radiation, Is Key Concern In Japan

One year ago this Sunday, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan triggered a tsunami that killed 20,000 people. It also triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

But health effects from radiation turn out to be minor compared with the other issues the people of Fukushima prefecture now face.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Forget The Robots: Venture Capitalists Change Their Health Care Investments

Credit Frank Perry / AFP/Getty Images
Surgical robots like this one are wildly expensive. Before the economic troubles began, investment in such high-tech medical devices was plentiful. Now, hospitals are looking for comparatively simple solutions to cut costs: streamline medical billing and even investing in $1 catheters that can save upwards of $50,000.

It wasn't that long ago that money flowed steadily to entrepreneurs who dreamt up whiz-bang medical devices.

Hospitals souped up their surgical suites with robots or high-tech radiation machines for cancer treatment. Cost wasn't an issue: They just got passed along to insurance companies, who passed them on to employers and patients.

But after the Great Recession hit and the 2010 health law passed, the financiers behind the medical arms race started to rethink their investment calculus.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
Rebuilding Japan

A Year On, Japan Is Still Looking For The Road Ahead

Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 11:09 am

A year after suffering the worst nuclear accident in its history, Japan is still struggling to understand what happened at the Fukushima nuclear plant in the country's northeast.

Last week, an independent commission released a report arguing that Japan narrowly averted what could have been a far deadlier disaster and that the government withheld this information from the public.

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12:01am

Fri March 9, 2012
Planet Money

Meet Claudia, The High-Tech Cow

Originally published on Mon March 12, 2012 11:09 am

Credit Adam Davidson / NPR
Technology at rest.

Here's the secret of the modern dairy farm: The essential high-tech advances aren't in machinery. They're inside the cow.

Take a cow like Claudia. She lives at Fulper Farms, a dairy farm in upstate New Jersey. Claudia is to a cow from the 1930s as a modern Ferrari is to a Model T.

In the 1930s, dairy farmers could get 30 pounds of milk per day from a cow. Claudia produces 75 pounds a day.

To appreciate a cow like Claudia, you have to know where to look.

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6:04pm

Thu March 8, 2012
The Two-Way

Miss. Supreme Court Upholds Former Gov. Barbour's Pardons

Originally published on Thu March 8, 2012 6:11 pm

Credit Rogelio V. Solis / AP
Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R).

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled today that Gov. Haley Barbour's controversial pardons are valid. Barbour handed out about 200 pardons on his way out of office in January and about 10 of them had been challenged in court.

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5:39pm

Thu March 8, 2012
Movie Reviews

'Friends With' Benefits From Its Complications

The premise of Friends with Kids is the stuff of high-concept romantic comedies: Writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt plays Julie, who's at the age when her odds of childbearing lessen each year, and there's no mate in sight. So her best friend, Jason, played by Adam Scott, volunteers to impregnate her.

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5:34pm

Thu March 8, 2012
Rick Santorum

Economic Conservatives Question Santorum's Record

Originally published on Thu March 8, 2012 6:12 pm

Credit Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum addresses an election night party in Steubenville, Ohio, on Tuesday.

Support for Rick Santorum's presidential campaign has been driven by his conservative stances on social issues. He has taken unyielding stands against abortion and same-sex marriage.

But on economic matters, his record is more mixed. And some conservatives say that on issues like government spending and trade, he has at times betrayed free-market principles.

For example, when Congress voted to approve the North American Free Trade Agreement — a cause dear to the hearts of conservatives — Santorum, then a Pennsylvania representative, was among those voting against it.

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5:33pm

Thu March 8, 2012
Shots - Health Blog

Women Who Drink Moderately Have Lower Stroke Risk

Credit iStockphoto.com
Way to lower your stroke risk, ladies.

Good news for those of us who see a glass of wine at the end of the day as Mom's reward: Light to moderate drinking may reduce the risk of stroke in women.

Women who drink a glass of wine, beer or a mixed drink daily were less likely to have strokes compared to women who don't drink at all, according to a findings from an ongoing study that has followed the health of more than 80,000 women for 26 years.

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5:33pm

Thu March 8, 2012
U.S.

House Committee Urges Action On Food Stamp Fraud

Credit Joe Raedle / Getty Images
One USDA official credits the use of plastic benefit cards with helping to reduce federal food stamp fraud. But lawmakers say that isn't enough.

4:42pm

Thu March 8, 2012
Winter Songs

Winter Songs: A Family In Limbo Looks To Brandi Carlile

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