Shots - Health Blog
1:22 am
Mon September 24, 2012

Two New Drugs May Help In Fight Against Obesity

Credit iStockphoto.com
Doctors may recommend that obese patients use weight-loss drugs to trick their hunger pangs.

Originally published on Tue September 25, 2012 9:59 am

The Food and Drug Administration approved two new medications this year to help obese and overweight individuals lose weight.

Diet drugs have been around in different forms for a while, but now researchers hope one of these two might actually help make a dent in the obesity epidemic.

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Shots - Health Blog
1:20 am
Mon September 24, 2012

Is CrossFit Training Good For Kids?

Originally published on Tue September 25, 2012 7:08 am

For thousands of people across the country, going to a regular gym just doesn't cut it. Instead, they prefer CrossFit routines: like swinging kettlebells, flipping tires, and doing squats and dead lifts until they drop. Now kids as young as 4 are taking part.

The idea behind CrossFit Kids, says co-founder Jeff Martin, is to pair fitness and fun. Since he started the program with his wife Mikki in 2004, it has taken off. There are hundreds of CrossFit Kids classes across the U.S., and more in cities across the world.

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Presidential Race
9:36 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

Romney Rules Rural As Obama's Support Wanes

Credit Mary Altaffer / AP
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney autographs a coal miner's hat during a campaign event Aug. 14 at American Energy Corp. in Beallsville, Ohio.

Originally published on Mon September 24, 2012 9:10 am

The nation's smallest and most remote places are providing Mitt Romney's biggest margins in battleground states as the 2012 presidential race enters its final weeks.

In fact, rural counties are keeping Romney competitive in the states that are now up for grabs. That's what a new bipartisan survey indicates. The poll also finds that President Obama's rural support has plunged since 2008.

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Around the Nation
3:41 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

Rising Income Gap Shapes Residential Segregation

Credit Amy Held / NPR
Mechelle Baylor's home in the Shaw area of Washington, D.C., has been in her family since 1929. She says she's seen her neighborhood change a lot as her neighbors move out and higher-income earners move in.

Originally published on Mon September 24, 2012 11:20 am

The income gap is receiving much attention lately as more Americans are isolating themselves around "people like us."

More accurately, they surround themselves with people who earn similar incomes, and it is now fueling a rise in residential segregation. One recent study suggests the income gap might be greater today than even during colonial times – even when you account for slavery.

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Kirk has been a reporter with Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison, Wis.; a writer and producer  at WBUR in Boston; a teacher and coach at Nativity Preparatory School in New Bedford, Mass.; a Fenway Park tour guide; and a tourist abroad. Kirk received his B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross and earned his M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not editing or reporting stories for VPR online and on-air, you can find him posting K's on the Wall at Fenway.

 

Around the Nation
2:18 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

Vt. Town Hires Livestock To Save Money, Go Green

Credit Kirk Carapezza / Vermont Public Radio
Charlotte, Vt., has a new, old-school strategy to keep cemetery grass cut: Let animals do the work.

Originally published on Sun September 23, 2012 3:51 pm

Cities and towns facing tight budgets have often neglected their cemeteries, an oversight that has left many of them in disrepair with broken fencing, crumbling gravestones, overgrown grass and persistent weeds.

But this summer, the Vermont town of Charlotte implemented a new strategy to both save money and keep grass in the town's graveyards under control, and it's a decidedly traditional way of doing it: Let goats and sheep do the work.

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Europe
2:17 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

Poverty, Segregation Fuel Marseille Crime Wave

Originally published on Sun September 23, 2012 3:51 pm

Drug and gang violence in Marseille, France's second largest city, has gotten so out of control that one local politician has called for the army to be sent in to restore order.

The proposal shocked the French and President Francois Hollande. Now, the French government is making the city a top priority.

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Around the Nation
2:16 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

Rare Specimens: An Unusual Match-Up In Entomology

Originally published on Sun September 23, 2012 4:16 pm

Alma Solis, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Systematic Entomology Lab, and her husband, Jason Hall, a researcher with the Smithsonian's Natural History Museum, are, at first blush, a natural match.

Both are entomologists, a career that requires long hours, field work and travel for months at time — all without huge pay. But the couple soon learned that though they shared a passion, they did not share a specialty.

Hers: moths.

His: butterflies.

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Author Interviews
2:16 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

The Life And Times Of Movie Star 'Laura Lamont'

Originally published on Mon September 24, 2012 12:05 pm

It's a small town girl's dream: One day, you're strutting the floorboards of a summer stage; the next, the silver screen. Thus is the arc of Elsa Emerson, a Door County, Wis., girl whose life at the Cheery County playhouse never quite goes away when she becomes the Oscar-winning Laura Lamont.

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Around the Nation
2:16 pm
Sun September 23, 2012

'New Deal' Town Turns 75, Utopian Ideals Long Gone

Originally published on Tue September 25, 2012 11:29 am

The town of Roosevelt, N.J., was born out of an era not much different from today. It was 1937, the economy was in the toilet, and the country bitterly divided.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt had won a second term in office — an election as acrimonious as today's — and with his re-election, a host of New Deal programs moved forward. One of these projects built 99 towns outside of industrial centers across the country. The town of Roosevelt, 50 miles south of New York City, was one of them.

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