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The Two-Way
9:08 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Twitter Blocks 'Offensive' Accounts In Germany, U.K.; Deletes Tweets In France

Credit Twitter.com

Earlier this year, Twitter announced a new device and a policy of weeding out and removing offensive content from its site if a foreign government requested it.

Thursday, the company tweeted that it's done so for the first time — blocking a neo-Nazi group's account in Germany. Today, Twitter withheld another account — this one in Britain, belonging to a right-wing member of the European Parliament who tweeted support for discrimination against gays. Government officials are investigating both cases.

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The Salt
9:03 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Sugar Beet Labor Battles Spill Out Onto The National Stage

Credit Dale Wetzel / AP
Supporters of American Crystal Sugar Co. workers, who have been locked out of the company's sugar beet processing plants since 2011, rally in the North Dakota Capitol.

It's not just nutritionists who have a problem with sugar these days, so does organized labor. The AFL-CIO is calling for a boycott of one the country's biggest sugar producers, the American Crystal Sugar Company, based in Moorhead, Minn.

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The Two-Way
8:34 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Life Of The Mother: Never A Reason For Abortion, Congressman Says

Credit Charles Rex Arbogast / AP
Congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) right, and challenger Tammy Duckworth, left, at a televised debate at WTTW Chicago on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2012.

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 10:43 am

During a televised debate Thursday on Chicago's WTTW, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) reiterated his opposition to abortion in any circumstance. It's similar to the Republican Party's national platform, which doesn't have any exceptions for abortion in the case of rape or incest. Walsh is taking it a step further — banning abortion to save the life of the mother.

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Election 2012
8:33 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Are Candidates Ignoring the Poor?

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 8:59 am

President Obama and Governor Romney have discussed the middle class a great deal during the debates, but the candidates haven't spent nearly as much time talking about the poor. To get a read on the state of poverty in America, host Michel Martin talks with Irwin Redlener, of the Children's Health Fund and Timothy Noah, a columnist for The New Republic.

Shots - Health News
8:33 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Tweet Chat: Chasing Down Polio, Eradication In Sight

Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Ado Ibrahim carries his son Aminu through a village in northern Nigeria. Aminu was paralyzed by polio in August.

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 1:26 pm

Polio is on the ropes.

Thanks to vigorous efforts to eradicate the virus through vaccination, there are only three countries on the face of the earth where polio is still endemic.

Reported cases of the paralytic virus worldwide stand at 177 so far this year compared with 350,000 in the late 1980s.

Can polio be wiped out? The target is within sight.

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It's All Politics
8:32 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Redistricting In Maryland Imperils Longtime Congressional Republican

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 10:38 am

Democrats have an uphill battle to take control of the House of Representatives in November. But one bright spot for the party is in Maryland's 6th Congressional District.

State Democrats redrew the district's boundaries, and now it favors their party. That leaves 10-term Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett in trouble.

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The Two-Way
8:07 am
Fri October 19, 2012

What The ...? Tom Hanks Drops 'F-Bomb' On 'Good Morning America'

Credit TMZ.com
TMZ.com was on the story quickly.

If we were asked to list actors who would be likely to slip up and drop the "f-bomb" on live, national TV, we don't think Tom Hanks would have come to mind.

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Movie Reviews
7:51 am
Fri October 19, 2012

'The Sessions': Sex, Comedy And Something More

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 7:53 pm

In 1983, Berkeley poet and journalist Mark O'Brien wrote an article about sexual surrogates — women and men trained to help people with disabilities learn to use their bodies to give themselves and others erotic pleasure.

For O'Brien, the subject wasn't academic. After a bout of childhood polio, he had spent much of his life in an iron lung. He could talk, and tap out words on a typewriter holding a stick in his mouth. He could feel things below the neck. But he couldn't move his muscles.

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Krulwich Wonders...
7:45 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Charles Darwin And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I guess everybody, even the smartest people who ever lived, have days when they feel dumb — really, really dumb. Oct. 1, 1861, was that kind of day for Charles Darwin.

In a letter to his friend Charles Lyell, Darwin says, "I am very poorly today," and then — and I want you to see this exactly as he wrote it, so you know this isn't a fake; it comes from the library of the American Philosophical Society, courtesy of their librarian Charles Greifenstein. Can you read it?

It says:

Whoah! You know the feeling, right?

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The Two-Way
7:19 am
Fri October 19, 2012

Sales Of Existing Homes Dipped In September, But Prices Rose

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
A "sold" sign in San Francisco in August.

There was a 1.7 percent drop in sales of existing homes in September from August, the National Association of Realtors says.

But the median selling price compared to one year earlier was up for the seventh month in a row, leading NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun to say "we're experiencing a genuine recovery."

According to NAR:

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