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The Two-Way
4:03 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

NOAA Predicts Above-Average Hurricane Season

Credit NOAA
Satellite image of Hurricane Sandy in October of last year.

Originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 4:10 pm

With memories of last year's Superstorm Sandy still fresh, NOAA is warning East Coasters and those farther inland to brace for another active Atlantic season, predicting that as many as six major storms will develop between the beginning of June and the end of November.

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The Salt
4:02 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

This 9-Year-Old Girl Told McDonald's CEO: 'Stop Tricking Kids'

Credit Jamie Robertson / Courtesy Jamie Robertson
Hannah Robertson, 9, and her mom, blogger Kia Robertson — with the makings for kale chips, of course.

Originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 4:47 pm

It's not every day that a 9-year-old girl chastises the CEO of one of the world's biggest fast-food chains.

Yet that's exactly what young Hannah Robertson did Thursday morning at McDonald's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago. When the meeting opened up to questions, Hannah was first up at the mic with a pointed criticism.

"It would be nice if you stopped trying to trick kids into wanting to eat your food all the time," she told McDonald's CEO Don Thompson.

Ouch.

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Shots - Health News
3:52 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Researchers Find Bird Flu Is Contagious Among Ferrets

Credit iStockphoto.com
Of ferrets, men and bird flu.

Scientists have completed the first assessments of how readily the H7N9 flu virus in China can pass among ferrets and pigs. The mammals provide the best inkling of how dangerous these bugs may become for humans.

The news is both bad and good. They've found the new bird virus is easily passed between ferrets sharing the same cage.

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The Two-Way
3:43 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Obama To Limit Drone Strikes, Renew Effort To Close Guantanamo

Credit Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
President Obama speaks about his administration's drone and counterterrorism policies at the National Defense University on Thursday.

Originally published on Thu May 23, 2013 4:27 pm

President Obama on Thursday unveiled a major pivot in White House counterterrorism policy, calling for a limiting of CIA drones strikes and for a renewed effort to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

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Shots - Health News
2:43 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Hardly A Haven: Home Can Be Deadly In Natural Disasters

Credit Paul J. Richards / AFP/Getty Images
Floodwaters from Superstorm Sandy destroyed the first floor of this house in Staten Island, New York. Most of the people who drowned during the storm died in their homes in low-lying areas of New York and New Jersey.

Home can be a refuge. But when natural disaster strikes, hunkering down at home can be a deadly mistake.

All told, 32 of the 53 New Yorkers who died in last fall's Superstorm Sandy drowned, and most of them died at home, according to a report published today in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

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The Two-Way
2:22 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

In Oklahoma, Praying To A 'God Of Rebuilding'

All that's left standing at Kiaya Roper's house in Moore, Okla., is the bathroom. When a tornado struck the town on Monday, Roper was at work at Central Elementary School, her children were at school and her husband managed to ride out the storm by hunkering down in that bathroom.

"God put his hand down on his head for me," Roper says.

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The Two-Way
2:20 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Moore Finds Comfort In Animals Who Survived The Storm

There's no room at the inn for the Degmans. Not the Days Inn, anyway.

Jim and Marilyn Degman didn't suffer significant damage to their home in Monday's storm, but they lost power and decided to seek shelter elsewhere. They tried two other places before they found a La Quinta Inn & Suites that would admit Angel Baby, their toy poodle.

"I think she's a little more traumatized than we are, because of her routine," Jim says. "She can't go to her home."

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Shots - Health News
2:09 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Seeing Double: Errors In Stem-Cell Cloning Paper Raise Doubts

Credit Richard Clement / Reuters /Landov
Biologist Shoukhrat Mitalipov stands outside the monkey enclosure at his lab in Oregon. He says the mistakes in his recent paper were caused by the rush to publish quickly.

This feels a bit like deja vu.

Scientists report a major breakthrough in human stem-cell research. And then just a week later, the findings come under fire.

Biologists at Oregon Health & Science University said May 15 that they had cloned human embryos from a person's skin cell.

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The Two-Way
1:47 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Teen Pregnancies Continue To Decline, New Report Shows

New government figures add to evidence of a decline in teen pregnancies across the nation and point to a notably large drop in births among Hispanic teens, NPR's Jennifer Ludden tells our Newscast Desk.

She reports that the overall birth rate among teens is now half what it was at its peak, two decades ago, and that a new report from the National Center for Health Statistics shows:

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Deceptive Cadence
1:32 pm
Thu May 23, 2013

Where's Your Awesome 'Rite Of Spring' Video?

Credit courtesy of Seth Boyden Demonstration School
Elementary school students in Maplewood, N.J. prepare to enact their own Rite.
  • Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring; Scriabin: The Poem of Ecstasy

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