National and World News from NPR

Mitt Romney has taken the lead in voter support in Pennsylvania, according to a new poll from Public Policy Polling which shows the Republican frontrunner ahead of Rick Santorum, the former U.S. senator from the Keystone State, 42 percent to 37 percent. That lead was just on the 4.9 point margin of error, suggesting a tie. That's bad news for Santorum, however, as he dropped six percentage points while Romney gained 17 percent from a month ago.

The number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment insurance stayed around a four-year low last week, the Employment and Training Administration just reported.

It says there were 357,000 such applications, down 6,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 363,000.

Claims have been running at the lowest rate since March and April 2008 for several weeks now.

Finding out that you have cancer greatly increases the risk of death by heart attack or suicide, according to a new study. That risk is especially big in the first week after getting the bad news.

They're teeing off this morning in Augusta, Ga. It's the Masters, the first of the "major" tournaments for men each year.

Fans had a chance to be immortalized in the stadium by buying personalized bricks. The animal rights group PETA bought one. The group's brick contained a hidden message that spells out an anti-fishing website.

The human toll from the financial crisis in Greece now has a human face.

After 77-year-old retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas killed himself Wednesday outside the parliament building in Athens, a suicide note he left was reported to say that he felt he must take a "dignified end to my life" because austerity measures and "annihilated all traces for my survival," particularly his pension.

A Seattle man came home to discover that his dog had eaten his tickets to the Masters in Augusta, Ga. After the dog threw up, he managed to re-assemble the tickets. After all that effort, the Masters says they'll re-print his tickets anyway.

Mitt Romney is closer to winning the GOP presidential nomination after primary victories this week in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Halfway through the GOP nominating season, Romney's attacks on President Obama are intensifying.

A Spanish bond auction went poorly Wednesday, suggesting that Spain may be becoming the next Greece. It was the first auction without a lot of help from the European central bank.