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PAULINE BARTOLONE, BYLINE: I'm Pauline Bartolone in Sacramento.

California, unlike Mississippi, is already on the road to Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. And after the law passed in 2010, it was the first state to get going to build an exchange.

Peter Lee is in charge of it. He never let uncertainty about the Supreme Court decision come in the way of building the new marketplace.

More than 70 years ago, Samsung started as a company which sold dried fish and fruit. Now Samsung sells everything from life insurance, to hotels and chemicals. It's one of South Korea's biggest companies. And, it's still run by the same family: the Lees.

Before we get to the fireworks on the Fourth of July, we might see some pyrotechnics from a giant physics experiment near Geneva, Switzerland.

Scientists there are planning to gather that morning to hear the latest about the decades-long search for a subatomic particle that could help explain why objects in our universe actually weigh anything.

The buzz is that they're closing in on the elusive Higgs particle. That would be a major milestone in the quest to understand the most basic nature of the universe.

"We had two shows that night," says Bobby Womack, recounting a recent concert in Houston. "It was a small theater, about 5- or 6,000 people. The second show, I was just out of it; they had to take me to the hospital."

It was a serious scare for the 68-year-old singer-songwriter — who has also lived through drug addiction and the deaths of two sons — and it didn't end that night.

As wildfires continue to burn in the West, the U.S. Forest Service is going to battle this summer with fewer air tankers. The number of planes that drop retardant on fires has shrunk significantly over the past 12 years.

In Boise, Idaho, the shortage of air tankers has led to some unexpected repurposing of aircraft.

"This particular aircraft was used as Air Force One at one point," explains pilot Lyle Ehalt, standing next to his shiny white-and-green tanker at the Boise Airport.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

As Carrie said, the war on drugs is not the primary campaign issue in Mexico. But it has been at the heart of outgoing President Felipe Calderon's agenda. The bloodiest battlefield in that war has been Ciudad Juarez, which is right across the border from El Paso, Texas. And the presidential election has not put residents there in a hopeful mood.

As Monica Ortiz Uribe, of member station KJZZ reports, many in Juarez have little faith that a new president can bring peace.

(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLES)

Everyone who lost a home to the Waldo Canyon Fire in Colorado seems to have a story about stuff: the stuff they grabbed as they fled, the treasures they forgot to pack. Colorado Public Radio's Megan Verlee reports on what it means to start over.

Recently, people in the small western town of Bethel, Alaska, got very excited when they saw flyers announcing the opening of a Taco Bell. But then, residents got the sad news: the flyers were a hoax. But the people of Bethel will not go taco-less.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene. Since the Supreme Court's ruling that upheld President Obama's signature health care law, it has been hard to separate substance from rhetoric. This has been one important theme coming from the White House.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I know there will be a lot of discussion today about the politics about all of this, about who won and who lost. That's how these things tend to be viewed here in Washington. But that discussion completely misses the point.

About 250 million people will tune in Sunday to watch Italy and Spain duke it out in the Euro 2012 final in Kiev. As always with European soccer, this battle has laid bare more than just skills on the field. Guest host David Greene talks with ESPN's Roger Bennett about the national undercurrents.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

OK. Well, let's turn now to the kind of football that is truly American.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFE IS A BALLGAME")

SISTER WYNONA CARR: Life is a ballgame, being played each day. Life is a ballgame...

GREENE: That is the jingle that we play every week when we bring on NPR's Mike Pesca. And, Mike, do you like this song?

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Yeah, like it? I suggested it. What's not to like? It's a gospel song that is an extended metaphor about batting against Satan.

GREENE: Does that lyric come in somewhere?

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene. The United States reached an agreement with Russia and other world powers yesterday to try to create a transitional government in Syria after months of bloodshed. But Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, opposed U.S. insistence that the Syrian leader should go. The deal was quickly dismissed by the Syrian rebels. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came back from Geneva last night but before she got on her plane, she sat down with NPR's Michele Kelemen.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

So much of the news out of Europe these days is about debt and countries struggling to pay their bills. Well, there is a bit of calm in that storm, and, of course, it's in Paris. There's no Greek-style austerity in France. And as Eleanor Beardsley tells us, in the City of Light, people are still enjoying the good life.

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Mexico is electing a new president Sunday, and voters appear ready to reject the ruling party led by outgoing President Felipe Calderon because many Mexicans believe his anti-drug campaign has done more harm than good. Guest host David Greene speaks with NPR's Carrie Kahn about the politics.

Earlier this week, Taiwanese-American attorney Grace Meng won the Democratic primary for New York's newly redrawn 6th Congressional District. She says she thinks of herself as an all-American kid, even if others didn't always see her that way.

"Growing up as a kid in Queens, there weren't really many Asians at all," Meng says. "I remember one day, my mom gave me dumplings to bring to school, and people were all like, 'What is that?'"

Meng says she would have preferred peanut butter and jelly.