Television
4:00 am
Tue April 3, 2012

'Perky' Katie Couric Returns To Morning TV

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Sixteen years - that is a long time to be number one. And this week, media critics and TV viewers are wondering whether NBC's "Today Show" can stay on top. There was a time, of course, when the name Katie Couric was synonymous with the "Today Show," helping them make it the ratings winner in morning news. And this week, Katie Couric could be the one who helps break that winning streak. Couric now works for ABC, and all week, she's guest hosting rival show "Good Morning America" with George Stephanopoulos.

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NPR Story
4:00 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Santorum Campaigns In Wisconsin

Transcript

DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: I'm David Welna in Ripon, Wisconsin. Rick Santorum got a big welcome yesterday from a pair of singing sisters as he campaigned in nearby Oshkosh.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Singing) Yes, I believe Rick Santorum is our man. Yes, we believe...

WELNA: Santorum urged the several dozen people who showed up to take the day off from work today, take their friends to the polls and pull off another primary day surprise.

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NPR Story
4:00 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Supreme Court Rules On Strip Search Issue

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.

A sharply divided Supreme Court has ruled that individuals arrested for even the most minor offenses can be stripped searched before they are jailed while awaiting a hearing. The high court's five-to-four decision came in the case of Albert Florence, the finance director at a New Jersey BMW dealership. He was arrested, strip searched and held in prison for a week because of a computer error.

NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

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NPR Story
4:00 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Romney Campaigns In Wisconsin

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene, good morning.

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have been fighting it out in Wisconsin for the past week. And tonight finally the results come in. Republicans will also cast votes today in Maryland and Washington, D.C. primaries, though the candidates have not spent a lot of time in those places. In all three contests, polls show Mitt Romney with a wide lead. But Rick Santorum continues to campaign as relentlessly as ever.

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Around the Nation
3:39 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Oakland Police: Former University Student Kills 7

Originally published on Wed April 4, 2012 2:01 pm

Oikos University is housed in a nondescript single-story industrial building in a business park near the Oakland International Airport.

The university's website says it trains men and women "for Christian leadership, both lay and clerical." But it doesn't say how many students attend. It offers courses in nursing, music, biblical studies and Asian medicine. And now it's the site of one of the deadliest mass shootings in California in recent memory.

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It's All Politics
3:05 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Do Negative Ads Make A Difference? Political Scientists Say Not So Much

Credit AP
Future U.S. senator and presidential candidate John Kerry poses with crewmates during the Vietnam War in this file photo. An attack on his service by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is remembered as a turning point in the 2004 election. But political scientists say negative ads might not be that effective.

Originally published on Wed April 4, 2012 2:01 pm

Pundits and commentators are forecasting that this fall's general election will see an avalanche of negative advertising. But as voters gird for the onslaught, political scientists are asking a different question: Will it matter?

When the Supreme Court lifted restrictions on private advertising in elections, superPACs supporting President Obama and the most likely Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, promised to unleash negative attacks on the other side.

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Space
3:05 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Earth Has Just One Moon, Right? Think Again

Everybody knows that there's just one moon orbiting the Earth. But a new study by an international team of astronomers concludes that everybody is dead wrong about that.

"At any time, there are one or two 1-meter diameter asteroids in orbit around the Earth," says Robert Jedicke, an astronomer at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.

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National Security
3:03 am
Tue April 3, 2012

A Prosecutor Makes The Case For Military Trials

Credit Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images
Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, graduated first in his class at West Point, studied as a Rhodes scholar, and attended Harvard Law School. Here he speaks during a press conference at the military facility on Jan 18. following a hearing against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the main suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.

Originally published on Wed April 4, 2012 2:01 pm

The chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is arguing a difficult case: that the commissions are not only fair, but can take pride of place alongside the civilian criminal justice system.

Brig. Gen. Mark Martins is the chief prosecutor for the commissions, the courts at the naval base that try high-profile terrorism suspects.

He has been called Guantanamo's detox man largely because he has made it his mission to show that the military commissions system at Guantanamo is no longer a toxic version of victor's justice.

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Television
3:01 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Media Outlets Adapt To Growing Hispanic Audience

Originally published on Wed April 4, 2012 2:01 pm

Rapid growth in the U.S. Hispanic community has created another boom — in Hispanic media. In recent months, several major media players have announced plans to join the competition for the Hispanic television audience. There's a new Hispanic broadcast TV network coming, plus a host of new cable channels aimed at Latinos.

The numbers tell the story: According to the census, the U.S. Hispanic population jumped by more than 40 percent in the past decade. The nation's 50 million-plus Hispanics now make up 16 percent of the TV-viewing public.

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All Tech Considered
3:00 am
Tue April 3, 2012

Who Has The Right To Our Facebook Accounts Once We Die?

Credit Gunay Mutlu / iStockphoto.com
At least two states are considering laws to require social networking sites to grant loved ones access to the accounts of family members who have died.

When Loren Williams died in a motorcycle crash in 2005, his mother used his Facebook password to read posts on his wall.

"These were postings from personal friends that [said] he meant a lot to them in their lives, and it was very comforting," Karen Williams told KGW television in Portland, Ore. "There were pictures that I had never seen before of his life and just evidence of the wonderful relationships that he had established."

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