Asia
11:33 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Obama Asks China To Help Halt N. Korean Rocket

Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
President Obama greets Chinese President Hu Jintao at the start of their meeting in Seoul, South Korea, on Monday. The U.S. president asked the Chinese leader to use his influence with North Korean to discourage that country from launching a rocket next month.

President Obama came to South Korea to talk about global nuclear security with world leaders, but found himself trying to build a unified front against North Korea's planned rocket launch next month.

Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak strenuously warned North Korea not to go ahead with the launch. In a speech Monday at the summit in Seoul, Obama used some of the toughest language he has ever used addressed to the leaders of North Korea.

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The Two-Way
11:13 am
Mon March 26, 2012

New Black Panther Party Offers $10K Bounty For George Zimmerman

Credit Mario Tama / Getty Images
Mikhail Muhammad of the New Black Panther Party speaks to the media next to a memorial to Trayvon Martin outside The Retreat at Twin Lakes community where Trayvon was shot and killed by George Michael Zimmerman.

Over the weekend, members of the New Black Panther Party showed just how tense the situation in the Trayvon Martin shooting has gotten: They offered a $10,000 bounty for the capture of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed the unarmed teenager.

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Shots - Health Blog
10:43 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Supreme Court Justices Hear Opening Arguments Over Health Care Law

Originally published on Tue March 27, 2012 3:09 pm

  • Listen to Nina Totenberg and Ari Shapiro talk about Monday's arguments


Does a federal law stretching back to 1867 bar the Supreme Court from deciding on the merits of the administration's health law right now?

The court on Monday heard the first arguments in a historic three-day session that could decide the fate of the Obama administration's signature domestic achievement.

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The Two-Way
10:32 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Filmmaker James Cameron Completes Solo Dive To Bottom Of The Ocean

Credit Mark Thiessen / AFP/Getty Images
Explorer James Cameron emerges from the Deepsea Challenger submersible after his successful solo dive to the Mariana Trench.

The filmmaker James Cameron just completed the first solo dive to the deepest part of the ocean.

As we reported, the Challenger Deep, near Guam, is 6.83 miles underneath the water's surface and had only been visited once before in 1960.

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Around the Nation
10:30 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Car Guru: Stop Downshift In Manual Transmissions

Credit Ian Kobylanski / via Flickr
Fewer people are buying cars with manual transmissions, and most young people now learn how to drive an automatic only.

Seventy years ago, 70 percent of U.S.-made cars came with a stick shift. The number is less than 9 percent today.

But at least one man is on a quest to reverse that slide.

Eddie Alterman loves automobiles. He's a gear head. He's the top editor at Car and Driver magazine. His whole career, he has watched the sales of cars with stick shifts decline. And when Ferrari failed to offer a manual option for the new 458 Italia, he said, enough's enough. Basta.

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Health Care
10:00 am
Mon March 26, 2012

A Red State Embraces Part Of Health Care Overhaul

Originally published on Mon March 26, 2012 9:41 am

Transcript

JACKI LYDEN, HOST:

I'm Jacki Lyden and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michele Martin is away this week. Coming up, spring hails all sorts of lovely flowers and in Washington it brings cherry blossoms on the trees that ring the city's tidal basin. We'll share the story behind the famed cherry blossoms in a few minutes. But first, the Supreme Court opens a three-day hearing today about the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act.

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Health Care
10:00 am
Mon March 26, 2012

A Florida Lawmaker Critiques Health Care Law

As the Supreme Court begins hearing arguments on the Affordable Care Act, Tell Me More continues the conversation about state reactions to the law. Guest host Jacki Lyden speaks with Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos, about opposition to the Affordable Care Act in his state.

Opinion
9:53 am
Mon March 26, 2012

New Republic: Obamacare's Somewhat Happy Birthday

Credit Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
President Barack Obama speaks during an event to mark the 90-day anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act June 22, 2010 in Washington, DC.

Originally published on Mon March 26, 2012 7:39 am

Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor at The New Republic.

When President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act two years ago, the law's proponents (including me) were confident of two things: That it would become more popular with time and that it would make our health care system more humane and efficient.

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Opinion
9:52 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Weekly Standard: Two Budgets. One Winner.

Credit Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis, chairman of the House Budget Committee, speaks to the media following a meeting between President Barack Obama and the House Republican Conference about the national debt limit and budget plans at the White House in Washington D.C., June 1, 2011. Ryan released his newest budget proposal on March 20, 2012.

Originally published on Mon March 26, 2012 6:34 am

Yuval Levin is a writer for The Weekly Standard

Last spring, when House Republicans passed Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan's ambitious fiscal agenda, it would have been easy to make two basic guesses about the proposal's lasting impact: On the one hand, it seemed that the budget's focus on the immense scope of the fiscal calamity heading our way would put the deficit and debt at the center of our politics for the rest of Barack Obama's term. But on the other hand, it looked like the Medicare proposal in the budget would be highly controversial and politically risky.

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Krulwich Wonders...
9:52 am
Mon March 26, 2012

Rare Sighting Of Dashing, Two-Legged Hairy Sprinting Crab?

Credit YouTube

Originally published on Mon March 26, 2012 7:11 am

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