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NPR Story
10:24 am
Fri June 15, 2012

How The Morning-After Pill Works

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 11:12 am

Mitt Romney referred to morning after-pills as 'abortive pills.' The FDA-approved label on Plan B indicates it may prevent fertilized eggs from implanting in a woman's uterus. Dr. Kristina Gemzell-Danielsson, an obstetrics and gynecology professor at Karolinska Institute, discusses the growing scientific evidence to the contrary.

NPR Story
10:24 am
Fri June 15, 2012

Mapping The Microbial Make-Up Of Healthy Humans

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 11:05 am

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

There are trillions of germs that live on us. What are they? What do they do? Inquiring minds want to know, and so they set to find out. And after five years of research, a group of several hundred scientists has released a census of the bacteria, viruses, fungi, other microorganisms that call our bodies home.

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NPR Story
10:24 am
Fri June 15, 2012

Bacterial Armor Imaged, Down To The Details

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 10:56 am

Reporting in Nature, an international team of scientists say they've visualized the structure of a protective protein coat that surrounds many bacteria, down to the scale of a single atom. Structural microbiologist Han Remaut, co-author of the study, discusses potential applications of the research.

The Two-Way
10:07 am
Fri June 15, 2012

Hoax No. 2: 'Kindness In America' Memoir Writer Shot Himself

We were very tempted earlier this week to post about the guy who said he's writing a memoir called Kindness in America and had gotten shot while hitchhiking across the country. Many sites picked up that oh-so-ironic story.

Then we got distracted. Probably by our shoes.

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Politics
9:34 am
Fri June 15, 2012

In Washington, Leaking As A Way Of Life

Credit Charles Tasnadi / AP
President Richard Nixon tells reporters he will not allow his legal counsel, John Dean, to testify before Congress in the Watergate investigation, March 15, 1973. Leaks about the Watergate break-in eventually helped lead to Nixon's resignation. And his administration fought and lost a Supreme Court battle over leaking of the so-called Pentagon Papers about Vietnam.

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 11:27 am

A leak — in a pipeline, at a nuclear plant, within a top-secret agency — can be dangerous, disastrous, deadly. But sometimes a leak can also be a good thing — drawing attention to a larger systemic problem.

The debate over news leaks bubbled up again this week after reports that The New York Times relied on information from top-tier and unnamed U.S. officials to reveal details about the U.S. cyberbattle against Iran.

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Planet Money
9:30 am
Fri June 15, 2012

An Austerity Wedding, With No Money For A Dress

Credit Nikolia Apostolou / NPR
Elias Tilligadas and Katerina Margeritou are getting married next week.

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 3:25 pm

Katerina Margaritou and Elias Tilligadas live in Athens. They're getting married next Wednesday — three days after the Greek election that has the global economy on edge.

Katerina is a chemist, and she works for a company whose main customer is the Greek government. The Greek government, of course, is broke. So Katerina hasn't been paid since last year.

"I'm very happy because I'm getting married," Katerina told me this week. "But I'm very sad because at the moment I cannot buy a dress. My boss promised me that he's going to give money to buy a dress. So I'm waiting."

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'It's All Politics': NPR's Weekly News Roundup
9:16 am
Fri June 15, 2012

It's All Politics, June 14, 2012

Credit David Karp / AP

June already has brought a strong dose of bad news for President Obama, from the monthly jobs report to questions about his Cabinet. So, how much can an incumbent blame on his predecessor?

Plus, Gabby Giffords' annointed successor wins the House seat in Arizona's special election. NPR's Ron Elving and Ken Rudin discuss.

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The Two-Way
9:10 am
Fri June 15, 2012

Rajat Gupta Guilty In Insider Trading Case

Credit Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images
Rajat Gupta on Wednesday as he arrived at the federal courthouse in Manhattan.

"Rajat Gupta, who reached the pinnacle of corporate America as managing partner of McKinsey & Co. and was a director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Procter & Gamble, was convicted by a federal jury of leaking inside information to hedge-fund manager Raj Rajaratnam," Bloomberg News writes.

The Associated Press recaps the case:

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Shots - Health Blog
9:09 am
Fri June 15, 2012

Insurers Wait For Verdict On Health Care Law And Their Bottom Line

Credit John Rose / NPR
Demonstrators both for and against the health care law turned out on the steps of the Supreme Court on March 27, the second day of oral arguments before the court.

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 3:25 pm

All eyes these days are trained on the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to rule sometime this month on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

But some people are waiting more anxiously for the court to rule than others. Among them are those with a major financial stake in whether the law goes forward or not and if so, in what form.

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Television
8:53 am
Fri June 15, 2012

'Car 54' Re-Release Drives An Old Fan To Reminisce

Originally published on Fri June 15, 2012 3:24 pm

I grew up in New York City, but I didn't watch Car 54, Where Are You? until I got hooked on it in syndication long after it was originally aired. So I was very happy to see the complete series of 60 episodes released on two DVD boxed sets. The episode in Season 2 titled "I Hate Capt. Block," about trying to teach a recalcitrant parrot to talk and the way people are not much smarter than parrots, is one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen on television, maybe as inspired as Sid Caesar's foreign film parodies or Carol Burnett's version of Gone with the Wind.

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