The Two-Way
7:59 am
Sun April 1, 2012

NPR Source: Tweets Will Shrink To 133 Characters

Credit Twitter
Twitter logo.

Happy April Fools' Day!

Rest easy, that headline was just a joke. You still have 140 characters to compose a tweet. Believe it or not: The productivity of the newsroom took a hit to come up with that fake headline. A whole host of people across NPR contributed a bunch of ideas. These were our 20 runners-up:

-- NPR Blogger Wins Mega-Millions Jackpot

-- Ford: All New Cars Will Have Air Bags For Cats and Dogs

-- Citing Safety Risks, 30 States Outlaw 'Driveway Moments'

-- More Teens 'Going Amish,' Shunning Technology

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Latin America
7:57 am
Sun April 1, 2012

Argentine War Hero's Ties To Torture Uncovered

Originally published on Fri May 11, 2012 10:33 pm

In Argentina, Capt. Pedro Giachino has long been remembered as a hero. He was the first to die in his country's failed invasion of the Falkland Islands, which took place 30 years ago on Monday.

Recently, though, human rights groups discovered that the iconic figure of sacrifice in the war with Britain had been a henchman in Argentina's brutal military dictatorship.

Carlos Diaz, a leading human rights activist in the city of Mar del Plata, walks gingerly into the city council, a dimly lighted chamber that is a sort of microcosm of Argentina's once-violent past.

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Sports
7:09 am
Sun April 1, 2012

Kentucky To Face Kansas In NCAA Title Game

Credit Chris Steppig / AP
Kansas' Thomas Robinson (0) fights for a rebound with Ohio State's Deshaun Thomas (1) during the second half of an NCAA Final Four semifinal college basketball tournament game Saturday in New Orleans.

Originally published on Fri May 11, 2012 10:33 pm

The national championship game in men's college basketball is set. The Jayhawks beat Ohio State in a close one and Kentucky got past Louisville.

At the nine-minutes-to-go mark in games one through four of Kentucky's romp through the NCAA tournament, the Wildcats have had leads of 13, 11, 18 and 30 points. So it was significant that the Louisville Cardinals actually found themselves tied with Kentucky at that nine-minute juncture.

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Sports
6:23 am
Sun April 1, 2012

Finally, The Payoff In Women's NCAA Basketball

Credit Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
Notre Dame guard Skylar Diggins goes up during the second round of NCAA women's tournament basketball in a game against California.

The NCAA Division 1 women's tournament gets criticized for not having enough true March Madness moments, when the Davids rise up and beat the Goliaths in nerve-jangling upsets. Such is the power structure in the women's game, with largely untouchable elite teams.

The payoff comes when all those elite teams gather, as they have in Denver, in such a show of force and talent that a fan tends not to miss the little guys.

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Around the Nation
10:06 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

Vermont Town Struggles To Keep Bookmobiles Alive

Credit Herb Swanson
The broken-down Cobleigh Public Library bookmobile sits idle at a storage facility in Lyndonville, Vt. Supporters are raising money to put it back on the road.

Originally published on Fri May 11, 2012 10:33 pm

Across America, libraries used to reach out to readers by sending bookmobiles into school parking lots, street corners and rural byways. Now, those rolling reading rooms are becoming scarce — too costly and outmoded, some say.

One town in northern New England just lost its bookmobile. The Cobleigh Public Library in Lyndonville, Vt., had managed to keep its van rolling until about a month ago, when it died.

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The Impact of War
9:17 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

Home Front: Soldiers Become Civilians Again

Originally published on Fri May 11, 2012 10:33 pm

We first met the soldiers of the 182nd Infantry Regiment of the Army National Guard about a week ago, on an airport tarmac. They had just landed in the United States after wrapping up a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.

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Shots - Health Blog
6:50 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

Babies Take Longer To Come Out Than They Did In Grandma's Day

Credit Carsten/Three Lions / Getty Images
Fifty years ago, the typical first-time mother in the U.S. took about four hours to give birth. These days, women labor about 6 1/2 hours.

Originally published on Sat March 31, 2012 6:51 pm

The typical first-time mother takes 6 1/2 hours to give birth these days. Her counterpart 50 years ago labored for barely four hours.

That's the striking conclusion of a new federal study that compared nearly 140,000 births from two time periods.

One big implication: Today's obstetricians may be rushing to do cesarean sections too soon because they're using an out-of-date yardstick for how long a "normal" labor should take.

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Judging The Health Care Law
5:16 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

How Did The Health Care Mandate Get Here?

Credit Carolyn Kaster / AP
Protesters chant and hold a copy of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in front of Supreme Court in Washington as the court concluded three days of hearing arguments on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments this week over key aspects of President Obama's health care law, including the expansion of Medicaid and whether the court even had the right to hear the case. But the core of the challenge mounted against the Affordable Care Act hinges upon its individual mandate, which requires almost every American to have or buy health insurance.

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Around the Nation
3:00 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

Tribe Sues To Keep Reservation Free Of Booze

The sale or possession of liquor is strictly forbidden by the tribal government of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. But there is a tiny town just over the border in Nebraska that does sell alcohol, in massive quantities, and mostly to tribal residents.

And now a longstanding battle over beer sales has spilled into federal court.

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Politics
3:00 pm
Sat March 31, 2012

In 1993, Republicans Proposed A Mandate First

Despite their current opposition, the individual mandate originated with Republicans. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks to former Sen. Bob Bennett about the Republicans' support of the idea. During his 18 years in the Senate, Bennett, a Republican, co-sponsored health care reform bills containing the individual mandate.

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