People hold pictures of Savita Halappanavar during a vigil outside Belfast City Hall, Northern Ireland, on Thursday. Halappanavar died Oct. 28 in Galway, Ireland, just days after she was denied an abortion.
The death of an Indian woman is prompting Ireland to examine the conditions under which abortions can be permitted in the country.
Savita Halappanavar, a 31-year-old dentist, died last month after she began to miscarry her 17-week-old fetus. Doctors denied her an abortion, a procedure that is illegal in the predominantly Catholic country, because the fetus had a heartbeat. The story gained traction this week after Halappanavar's husband took her body back to India for cremation and went public with the events that led to her death.
Originally published on Mon November 19, 2012 1:51 pm
Wal-Mart is throwing its hat in the gourmet food ring just in time for the holidays this year. Wednesday, the megastore company launched a monthly food subscription service that sends customers a sampling of novel food products each month.
Family and friends of Aaron Smadja, one of the three Israelis killed by a rocket fired from Gaza, mourn during his funeral at a cemetery in the southern Israeli town of Kiryat Malachi on Thursday.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 5:13 pm
In an interview with All Things Considered's Melissa Block, Israel's Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren said that Israel's calling of 30,000 reservists "signals a preparation for possible land action, which we may need to defend our citizens."
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 6:45 pm
There's nothing quite like a deadline to focus the mind. Even a deadline that's not quite real.
Friday was originally the day that states were supposed to not only tell the federal government whether they planned to run their own health exchanges but also how they planned to do it.
Sandy punched a hole in the barrier island that holds the affluent borough of Mantoloking, N.J., temporarily splitting the community in two. The storm also destroyed several multimillion-dollar homes and erased the island's protective system of dunes.
Credit USGS
Storm waves and currents removed sand from a beach in Long Branch, N.J., exposing rock and concrete walls.
Credit USGS
A portion of Fire Island, N.Y., was breached during Sandy, creating a new inlet. Despite the breach, a fishing shack on nearby Pelican Island (yellow arrow) remained standing.
Credit USGS
Storm waves and surge cut across the barrier island at Mantoloking, N.J., eroding a wide beach, destroying houses and roads, and depositing sand onto the island and into the back bay.
New Jersey's most affluent community, Mantoloking, sits on a narrow barrier island 30 miles north of Long Beach. As Sandy approached, most of the residents fled inland. But Edwin C. O'Malley and his father, Edwin J. O'Malley Jr., hunkered down in their 130-year-old house.
They tied a boat to their porch and then watched the storm surge break over the dunes and flood the streets.
"Overnight that night, lying in bed, I could actually hear waves hitting the side of the house — which obviously made it more difficult to get to sleep," the younger O'Malley says.
Voters were frustrated by a 2012 presidential race they called more negative than usual and more devoid of substantive discussion of issues, according to a survey released Thursday by the Pew Research Center.
And voters are pessimistic about the prospect of a more productive Congress, Pew found.
Two-thirds of registered voters surveyed after Election Day said they believe relations between Democrats and Republicans will stay the same or worsen over the coming year.
When Chef Jose Garces, the Philadelphia-based restaurateur and author of The Latin Road Home, thinks back to the Thanksgiving table of his youth, he remembers the turkey, and his father's chicken giblet gravy.
But his parents, who emigrated to Chicago from Ecuador in the 1960s, whipped up Ecuadorean staples as well.
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta speaks during a press conference following meetings as part of AUSMIN at the State Reception Centre in Kings Park in Perth, Australia.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has ordered a review of military ethical standards. The order comes just days after CIA Director David Petraeus stepped down because of an extramarital affair.
The Washington Post reports, however, that Panetta was in the process of ordering this review despite the Petraeus scandal. The Post adds:
Climate change and the environment were not major topics of the presidential campaign. And on Wednesday, President Obama said that while he believes more needs to be done to address what's happening, he won't "ignore jobs and growth simply to address climate change."
Online insurance markets set to begin selling health coverage to consumers next October may be hampered by software delays.
State regulators learned late last week that an electronic system most insurers will use to submit their policies for state and federal approvals won't be ready for testing next month, as originally planned. The lag is being blamed on the wait for several regulations from the Obama administration that are needed to update the software.
Five days a week, the Peaches & Greens truck sells affordable fruits and vegetables to families on public assistance, people without a car, homebound seniors and even local workers who otherwise would grab fast food or candy for a snack.
Credit Carlos Osorio / AP
Peaches & Greens driver Diane Brown helps customers out of her truck in Detroit where she sells fresh fruits and vegetables.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 4:12 pm
Tens of millions of Americans can't follow the government's guidelines for healthful eating because they can't afford or access enough fresh fruits and vegetables. Sometimes it's because they live in what's known as a "food desert," places devoid of markets with a good variety of quality fresh foods.
Dirty water from the oil wells flows through oil-caked pipes into a settling pit where trucks vacuum off the oil. A net covers the pit to keep out birds and other wildlife. Streams of this wastewater flow through the reservation and join natural creeks and rivers.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
More than 40 years ago, the EPA banned oil companies from releasing wastewater into the environment, but made an exception for the arid West. If livestock and wildlife can use the water, companies can release it. Cows like these grazing near a stream of waste on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming are supposedly the reason the EPA lets oil companies release their waste into the environment.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
The EPA requires that the wastewater streams show no obvious sheen and no solid deposits. But both were visible near oil fields on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
White crystal-like deposits line a streambed where this oil field water is flowing. Researchers for the tribes have also found black oozes, purple growths, dead ducklings and lifeless stretches of streams.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
In most oil fields, the water that companies pump up with the oil gets reinjected deep underground. But the federal government allows a dozen oil fields on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming to pump streams of this wastewater onto the land.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
Rancher Darwin Griebel says his cows need the oil field water, and his business depends on it.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
Wes Martel, vice chairman for the Eastern Shoshone Business Council, stands near a murky gray stream full of oil field wastewater. He's concerned about the effects the wastewater has on wildlife, water quality and, since cows drink it, he wonders: "What's in your steak?"
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
Internal EPA documents released to NPR show some EPA staffers have been trying to figure out what is in the wastewater released by oil companies. There are lots of chemicals. Some leave solid residues like these white and gray mounds. Danger signs near this outflow pipe warn that poisonous gas fumes from the water can cause respiratory irritation or suffocation.
Credit Elizabeth Shogren / NPR
Dirty water from the oil wells flows through oil-caked pipes into a settling pit where trucks vacuum off the oil. A net covers the pit to keep out birds and other wildlife. Streams of this wastewater flow through the reservation and join natural creeks and rivers.
The air reeks so strongly of rotten eggs that tribal leader Wes Martel hesitates to get out of the car at an oil field on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. He already has a headache from the fumes he smelled at another oil field.
Jihad Masharawi weeps while he holds the body of his 11-month old son Ahmad, at Shifa hospital following an Israeli air strike on their family house, in Gaza City on Wednesday.
Credit Mohammed Salem / Reuters /Landov
Jihad Masharawi, a Palestinian employee of BBC Arabic in Gaza, mourns over the body of his 11-month-old son.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 4:12 pm
Two sources tell NPR that four more BP employees will be charged in relation to the BP oil spill, which dumped more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.
The individuals facing manslaughter charges are former BP well managers Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza. Another high ranking official, David Rainey, the former head of Gulf of Mexico exploration, will be charged with downplaying the spill to lawmakers. One more lower ranking BP employee will face insider trading charges.
Wang Heying, 64, supports the new Communist leaders, even if she can barely name them. She says government policies have led street lamps, bigger houses and a TV in every home.
Credit Frank Langfitt / NPR
Villagers in Dongjiangai, in eastern China's Jiangsu province, watch the presentation of the Communist Party's new leadership on national TV Thursday. They say they support the new leaders because of the improvements government policies have brought to their village.
Credit Frank Langfitt / NPR
Dongjianggai, a farming village, lies about 200 miles northwest of Shanghai.
An elderly couple is winnowing rice in the front yard of their home in the tiny village of Dongjianggai, about 200 miles northwest of Shanghai. They've just watched China's incoming leaders — including Xi Jinping, the new general secretary of the Communist Party — appear for the first time on national TV.
"We don't know them," the husband, Wu Beiling, says. "Xi Jinping was just unveiled. I'm not very familiar with the rest of the members."
I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. In a few minutes, we will speak with the winner of the prestigious National Book Award for Nonfiction, author Katherine Boo. She was honored for her book about the people in a neighborhood in Mumbai, and she'll tell us more about it in a few minutes.
Switching gears now, we've all heard about how veterans leave the military with lifelong lessons about discipline, camaraderie and staying cool under fire, but our next guest says his military service also helped him with his finances.
Steve Repak is a veteran who is now a certified financial planner. He says he's applied what he learned in the Army to apply discipline to his finances. He's written a book to share what he learned. It's called "Dollars and Uncommon Sense: Basic Training for Your Money," and he's with us now.
The United States Postal Service reported a record $15.9 billion loss in fiscal year 2012. That compares to a $5.1 billion loss last fiscal year.
Bloomberg reports that the postal service is forecast to run out of cash by Oct. 15, 2013 when it is scheduled to make a workers compensation payment to the Labor Department. The Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe painted a grim picture when he announced the loss.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie listens to a question in Trenton, N.J., Tuesday. He has refused to tip his hand on whether New Jersey will set up a federally mandated health insurance exchange or let the federal government handle the chores.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 7:24 pm
Update 8:20 p.m: Late Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius extended the deadline until Dec. 14 for states to decide whether to run an exchange on their own.
Come Friday, states will have to decide whether they will run their own insurance exchanges under President Obama's sweeping health law.
These exchanges will be where people and small businesses go to shop for insurance.
Moaz al-Khatib, a Muslim cleric, is the leader of the newly formed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition. The opposition is working to build support inside Syria through Facebook and other social media.
Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus rides the Mitt Romney campaign bus days before the presidential election. Despite Romney's loss and other GOP failures, Priebus, who helped the party raise huge sums of money in 2012, may seek a second term.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 3:16 pm
There has been no dearth of post-election Republican self-flagellation.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, on the eve of heading out to a meeting of Republican governors in Las Vegas, warned the GOP to "stop being the stupid party." At the gathering Wednesday night, he leveled more harsh criticism at party presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 10:08 am
Update at 11:05 a.m. ET: "Our system is up. We're resuming operations for affected flights," United Airlines says. There's no word yet on how long it will take to get everyone where they need to go.
Our original post:
If you're headed to the airport and planning to fly on United today, be aware:
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 7:56 am
There were 439,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, up by 78,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration says. Behind the big increase: Superstorm Sandy, which threw some people in the Mid-Atlantic onto the unemployment rolls and shut down state unemployment offices the week before — meaning that some claims were postponed into last week.
Originally published on Thu November 15, 2012 5:32 pm
Update at 11:30 a.m. ET: Oil giant BP has agreed to plead guilty to criminal misconduct related to the 2010 Gulf Oil spill and will pay a record $4 billion in criminal penalties, the company just confirmed. And it will pay $525 million in civil penalties in a resolution with the Securities and Exchanges Commission. BP will make the payments over six years.
