Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 7:54 pm
In what was billed the "patent trial of the century," Apple emerged victorious in its fight against Samsung.
A federal grand jury in San Jose, Calif. quickly worked through a 20-page verdict form, finding that Samsung violated many of Apple's patents, handing the Cupertino tech behemoth a major victory and a little more than $1 billion in damages.
Lance Armstrong may soon be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, but many supporters are sticking by him — if not as the celebrity cyclist, then as the relentless advocate for cancer survivors.
That's encouraging news for his Livestrong foundation, which must deal with the delicate matter of a scandal-tainted figurehead.
Lance Armstrong speaks to the media after the February 2011 Xterra Nationals triathlon. On Friday, the cyclist said he would no longer fight doping allegations.
Originally published on Sun August 26, 2012 10:54 am
Lance Armstrong. He has a superhero's name, right out of the comic books. He moved from conquering stages of one kind — bike racing — to stages of another kind — cancer. He's chiseled and driven and known all over the world.
But now we learn that the superhero has given up in one of his biggest battles. He says he will no longer continue to fight charges by the United States Anti-Doping Agency that he used performance enhancing drugs to win bicycle races.
Republican vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan speaks at a campaign event in Fayetteville, N.C., on Thursday.
Credit J. Scott Applewhite / AP
As congressional colleagues, Rep. Todd Akin (right) and Rep. Paul Ryan have co-sponsored anti-abortion legislation. They're seen here before a press conference on Ryan's budget proposal on Apr. 5, 2011.
Since Republican Rep. Todd Akin first said the words "legitimate rape" Sunday, just about everyone in the Republican Party has condemned those comments.
The Missouri Senate candidate later apologized, but his remarks continue to drive the political debate. They've also raised questions about the anti-abortion record of the Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 8:43 am
A few years ago, if Bill Graff wanted to find out whether other farmers' fields looked anything like his, he'd make some calls and check an online bulletin board. It might take him a few days, even a week, to get a sense of how his crops stacked up against others in his region.
Now Graff, 53, who grows 1,400 acres of corn, soybean, wheat and hay in central Illinois, checks his Twitter feed. "I can get a half-way decent idea of what's going on out there instantaneously," Graff says.
The Georgia-based rock band Blackberry Smoke has been together for more than a decade, slowly building an audience the old-fashioned way by relentless touring — around 250 shows a year.
Timmons and Springer work in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, which were burned during last year's Wallow Fire. The largest fire in Arizona history, Wallow barreled through a half-million acres of forest.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Kralicek logs data on plants and wildflowers that have grown back in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests since the Wallow Fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Ecologists use tape measures to track regrowth following last year's Wallow Fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A team of students from Northern Arizona University walks through a clearing on the way to a remote location they are studying in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Northern Arizona University researchers are trying to study the effects of fire on treated and untreated forest areas in Apache-Sitgreaves.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Northern Arizona University students Zac Timmons (left) and Karen Kralicek (center) work with plant ecologist Judy Springer in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests in east-central Arizona. They are studying the effects of forest restoration treatments following the Wallow Fire of 2011.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A researcher holds a horned lizard found in a study site, a positive sign of life returning after the Wallow Fire
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A year after the Wallow Fire, students chart every square inch of an open meadow in an area where the fire raged.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Madison Daniels, a student at Northern Arizona University, takes a short break from gathering data in a meadow in Apache-Sitgreaves. Both students and faculty live in the forest for weeks while they conduct their ecological research.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Wally Covington is director of the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. He helped create the 4FRI project, whose goal is to restore the natural Ponderosa pine forest.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A worker walks by a feller buncher, a heavy machine used to clear timber, in a section of Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests. Covington's group is trimming the forest to make it more fire-resistant.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Bill Armstrong, fire manager for the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico, is a firm believer in thinning forests and returning them to a natural burn cycle to avoid megafires.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The Forest Service is thinning and treating the forest around the Sierra de los Pinos neighborhood in the Jemez Mountains, west of Los Alamos, N.M. The goal is to reduce the threat posed by future megafires.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The Forest Service is also trying to get people who live in the Jemez Mountains area to thin and maintain the forests around their homes.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Contract foresters work on a thinning operation in Los Griegos Peak, on U.S. Forest Service land in the Jemez Mountains.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A forest-thinning operation in Los Griegos Peak.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A thinned and treated forest in the Sangre de Cristo mountains, near the Santa Fe watershed. To effectively protect against wildfire threats, the Forest Service needs to burn tree litter and other detritus that remain on the forest floor.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Bill Armstrong of the U.S. Forest Service opens the security gate at the Santa Fe watershed, in New Mexico's Sangre de Cristo mountains.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Armstrong stands in front of a Ponderosa pine, locally known as a yellow belly pine.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A view of a private home in the Jemez Mountains.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A view of the Valles Caldera. The valley served as a high-mountain pasture for ranchers for years. In the distance you can see the Santa Fe National Forest, which burned during the 2011 Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
William Armstrong, fire manager for the Santa Fe National Forest service, says lush forests can be a "plague."
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Last year's Wallow Fire, the largest in Arizona history, barreled through the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests, in the east-central part of the state. The forests are now being thinned to reduce the threat posed by future wildfires.
Forests in the Southwest have become a fuel stockpile. A century of U.S. Forest Service policy of quashing all fires has allowed forests to become overgrown, and now a warming climate is making the problem worse.
Scientists are trying to defuse these green time bombs. Is it too late?
A summertime basketball camp can cost a kid several hundred dollars. But the Basketball in the Barrio camp — held just two blocks from the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso — costs just one buck.
Actually, only a portion of the camp is about basketball, says co-founder Rus Bradburd. The experience is sponsored by Athletes United for Peace, a group that tries to promote peace and harmony through sports.
The head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency says Lance Armstrong knows the truth and he has decided that instead of airing every piece of evidence publicly and in front of an impartial court, the dethroned seven-time Tour de France winner has decided to "hold on to baseless soundbites."
Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 12:24 pm
Pakistani security officials say that a United States drone strike has killed 18 suspected militants today in the northwest part of the country. The attack is the fifth of its kind in a week.
In Commerce, Mich., today, The Associated Press reports, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney told supporters that he and his wife, Ann, had been born in nearby hospitals. Then, Romney added, "no one's ever asked to see my birth certificate; they know that this is the place where both of us were born and raised."
Families wait for hours to register at the Yida refugee camp in South Sudan along the northern border in early July. Within a few weeks, the population of the camp more than doubled, leading to shortages of food, water and medicine.
Credit Paula Bronstein / Getty Images
White tents scatter across the Yida refugee camp along northern border of South Sudan on June 29. The international aid community is struggling to provide food and medical supplies to the families after heavy rains blocked roads to the camp.
Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 2:32 pm
It's been only a year since South Sudan became an independent nation. But as NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reported last month, the young county is already facing major challenges.
One of these is a growing population of refugees at the northern border, where conditions have become so dire in the past few weeks that aid workers are now calling it a "health catastrophe."
