Europe
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

23 European Countries Sign On To Fiscal Pact

After meeting Friday in Brussels until the early morning hours, most European leaders agreed to a plan to move ahead with more budget discipline. Are world financial markets likely to see the talks as a failure or as progress?

Europe
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

After All-Night Meeting, A Plan To Save Euro

European Union leaders wrapped up a 10-hour-long meeting in Brussels agreeing on a fiscal pact that will require stricter budget discipline. But Britain is among countries not signing on to the deal. The head of the European Central Bank is calling the pact positive. It's not clear, though, whether the move is enough to relieve Europe's debt crisis in the near future. NPR's Philip Reeves wraps up the meeting.

U.S.
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

Report: Federal Agency Shares Blame In Mine Blast

The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration released its final report this week into last year's West Virginia mine explosion. That explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine killed 29 workers. The government has maintained that the company that owned the mine, Massey Energy, didn't do enough to prevent the accident. Now, documentation obtained by NPR indicates that the government didn't do enough, either.

U.S.
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

Finals On Hold, Vigil Set After Va. Tech Shooting

Virginia Tech is quiet Friday morning after a gunman shot and killed a campus police officer and then killed himself Thursday afternoon. For hours the sprawling campus in Blacksburg, Va., relived the horror of a 2007 shooting that left 33 dead and raised troubling questions about the university's slow response to the tragedy.

Latin America
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

5 Years Later: Calderon's War On Cartels

Sunday marks the fifth anniversary of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's declaration of all-out war against drug traffickers in his country. In 2006, he vowed to use all the powers of the state to take down the drug lords. The narco-war has left a stunning toll — more than 40,000 people dead.

Sports
4:00 am
Fri December 9, 2011

Is Albert Pujols Worth $250 Million?

The Los Angeles Angels have signed slugger Albert Pujols. He's considered one of the best baseball players of his generation, but is the $250 million the Angels are paying Pujols worth it?

The Two-Way
7:32 pm
Thu December 8, 2011

A Survivor's Duty After Pearl Harbor: Telling The Story

Credit StoryCorps
Pearl Harbor survivor Frank Curre gave his eyewitness account of the attack in an interview with StoryCorps in Waco, Texas.

It turns out that Frank Curre, who survived Pearl Harbor and then died on Dec. 7, 2011, 70 years after the attack, may have hit the attack's anniversary exactly. We heard from his family late Wednesday that Curre died around noon, in Waco, Texas. That means it was around 8 o'clock in the morning in Pearl Harbor — the hour the aerial attack began.

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Barbara Bradley Hagerty is the religion correspondent for NPR, reporting on the intersection of faith and politics, law, science and culture. Her New York Times best-selling book, "Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality," was published by Riverhead/Penguin Group in May 2009. Among others, Barb has received the American Women in Radio and Television Award, the Headliners Award and the Religion Newswriters Association Award for radio reporting.

Before covering the religion beat, Barb was NPR's Justice Department correspondent between 1998 and 2003. Her billet included the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, Florida's disputed 2000 election, terrorism, crime, espionage, wrongful convictions and the occasional serial killer. Barbara was the lead correspondent covering the investigation into the September 11 attacks. Her reporting was part of NPR's coverage that earned the network the 2001 George Foster Peabody and Overseas Press Club awards. She has appeared on the PBS programs Washington Week and The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Barb came to NPR in 1995, after attending Yale Law School on a one-year Knight Fellowship. From 1982-1993, she worked at The Christian Science Monitor as a newspaper reporter in Washington, as the Asia correspondent based in Tokyo for World Monitor (the Monitor's nightly television program on the Discovery Cable Channel) and finally as senior Washington correspondent for Monitor Radio.

Barb was graduated magna cum laude from Williams College in 1981 with a degree in economics, and has a masters in legal studies from Yale Law School.

Jennifer Ludden is a correspondent on NPR's National Desk. She covers a range of stories on family life and social issues.

In recent years, Ludden has reported on the changing economics of marriage, the changing face of retirement as the baby boomers enter old age, and the ethical challenges of modern reproductive technology.

Ludden helped cover national security after the 9/11 attacks, then reported on the Bush administration's crackdown on illegal immigrants as well as Congressional efforts to pass a sweeping legalization. She traveled to the Philippines for a story on how an overburdened immigration bureaucracy keeps families separated for years, and to El Salvador to profile migrants who had been deported or turned back at the border.

Prior to moving into her current assignment in 2002, Ludden spent six years as a foreign reporter for NPR covering the Middle East, Europe, and West and Central Africa. She followed the collapse of the decade-long Oslo peace process, shared in two awards (Overseas Press Club and Society of Professional Journalists) for NPR's coverage of the Kosovo war in 1999, and won the Robert F. Kennedy award for her coverage of the overthrow of Mobutu Sese Seko in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

When not navigating war zones, Ludden reported on cultural trends, including the dying tradition of storytellers in Syria, the emergence of Persian pop music in Iran, and the rise of a new form of urban polygamy in Africa.

Before joining NPR in 1995, Ludden reported in Canada, and at public radio stations in Boston and Maine.

Ludden graduated from Syracuse University in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in English and Television, Radio and Film Production.

Shots - Health Blog
5:21 pm
Thu December 8, 2011

To Keep Marriage Healthy When Baby Comes, Share Housework

Credit iStockphoto
A survey identifies traits, like generosity, that help couples buck the trend toward marital discord once baby arrives.

As many couples can attest — and lots of research backs this up — marital happiness plummets with the arrival of a baby. Sleepless nights, seemingly endless diaper changes and the avalanche of new chores that come with a newborn leave little time for the intimacies of marriage. It's a situation ripe for mental stress and marital discord.

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