In June of 2009, a committee met at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to do a routine safety review of proposed research projects.
One of those projects involved genetically modifying flu viruses. And during the review, the committee brought up the idea of "dual-use" research. "Dual use" means legitimate scientific work that's intended to advance science or medicine, but that also might be misused with the intent to do harm.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recovering from a heart transplant he received Saturday at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va.
The operation makes Cheney among more than 2,300 Americans who get heart transplants every year.
Heart transplantation has come a long way since Christiaan Barnard stitched the heart of a young woman into the chest of a middle-aged man in South Africa in 1967. That transplant recipient died 18 days later. Today, recipients can expect to get a decade or more of life from their new hearts.
A man rides his bicycle past a billboard welcoming Pope Benedict XVI, just days before his arrival, in Havana, Cuba. Pope Benedict's trip to Latin America includes Mexico and Cuba.
In 1998, when Pope John Paul II made his historic visit to Cuba, few Cuban-Americans made the pilgrimage across the Florida straits.
But when Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Cuba on Monday, hundreds of Cuban-Americans will be on hand in Santiago de Cuba when he celebrates Mass.
Carlos Saladrigas is well-known in Miami's Cuban-American community. He's a prominent businessman and co-chairman of the Cuba Study Group, an organization working to make Cuba a free and open society. He'll be in Antonio Maceo Revolution Square for Mass.
Dr. Glenn Hodges, a volunteer at Health Partnership Clinic in Johnson County, Kan., says he will continue to focus on those without coverage even if the clinic he volunteers at accepts Medicaid and private coverage.
Free health clinics have long been places people turn to when they don't have health insurance or any money to pay for care. But the health law's expansion of coverage puts free clinics in uncharted territory.
While the law goes before the Supreme Court this week, health providers are already gearing up for a surge in patients with insurance.
Around the country, hundreds of free clinics have been established over the past 50 years to treat patients like Patsy Duarte.
The man behind a rescue business for pets left behind in the Rapture now says it was all a hoax. The New Hampshire Insurance Department is now investigating.
Author Luis Alberto Urrea reminds listeners that the deadline for Round 8 of Three-Minute Fiction is tonight, Sunday, March 25, at 11:59 p.m. ET. All submissions must be received by then to be considered a valid entry in the contest. The story must begin with the sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door". As always, the story must be 600 words or less. To submit a story, go to npr.org/threeminutefiction.
The hooded sweatshirt has become an unlikely but potent symbol since the shooting of Trayvon Martin. Fox's Geraldo Riviera went so far as to say that wearing a hoodie might have contributed to Trayvon's death last month. But for the organizer of the "million hoodie march" in New York, and for many young black men in Florida, wearing a hooded sweatshirt has become a form of protest against racial profiling in the wake of Trayvon's shooting. NPR's Joel Rose reports.
Tomorrow morning the Supreme Court begins a three-may marathon of oral arguments challenging President Obama's landmark health care law, the Affordable Care Act. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan previews the arguments with NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. She also speaks to Mark Gross, owner of a professional line standing service, who is poised to have a lucrative week, and Jeff Rother of the National Coalition on Health Care walks us back through health reform's tempestuous path to the Supreme Court.
