Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. A cold winter, a stifling summer, and your power bill will spike. But Grace Edwards' electric bill had seemed high for 25 years. Connecticut Light and Power first told her it must be an extra TV or her air conditioning. Turns out, Edwards was paying to power two street lights. The Hartford Courant reports she's been issued a refund of $10,491, what she overpaid plus interest, plus an apology. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
Nellie Gray: 'No one ... can legalize even a little bit of abortion'
Nellie Gray, who in 1974 helped start the annual antiabortion demonstration in Washington called March for Life that attracts thousands to the nation's capital, has died. She was 88.
According to The Washington Post, "Gene Ruane, a colleague, said that he found Miss Gray dead Monday in her Capitol Hill home and that the chief medical examiner will determine the cause and date of her death."
Despite being a busy M.D.-Ph.D. student at Brown University, Bill Brucker is determined to improve science education in the United States.
To that end, Bill has set up the Providence Alliance for Clinical Educators that combines captivating storytelling with exquisite illustrations to teach scientific principles in a fun and memorable way.
A new movie in theaters today is titled "The Odd Life of Timothy Green." And film critic, Kenneth Turan, found the movie, itself, odd.
KENNETH TURAN: "The Odd Life of Timothy Green" is a when you wish upon a star fable in the old school Disney style. It's just the kind of inspirational family-friendly comfort food it feels churlish to rebuff. But though the film's heart is pure, its execution is so cloying and contrived it brings on tears of frustration.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning. I'm David Greene.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
You could say that the presidential campaign got a jolt of energy this week. President Obama was in Iowa yesterday, touting the electric potential of wind power. Republican rival Mitt Romney was in Ohio, talking up that old standby, coal. Each man accused the other of standing in the way of a rival energy source.
Vice President Joe Biden is on a campaign tour of Virginia, which is a key swing state in the presidential race. Biden seized on Republican challenger Mitt Romney's choice of Rep. Paul Ryan as a running mate. Biden said it shows what the Republican ticket really stands for.
Originally published on Wed August 15, 2012 5:03 am
Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan continues to introduce himself to voters. Over the weekend, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced Ryan would be his running mate. So far, Ryan has campaigned exclusively in battleground states that were carried by Democrats in 2008.
Federal law bars gun sales to the mentally ill only if they've ever been deemed by a judge to be mentally incompetent or involuntarily committed. States reporting of such things to the federal database is spotty, and very often, it doesn't show up when a gun seller does a background check.
Timothy Courtois' family had been worried about him for weeks. They repeatedly told police in Biddeford, Maine, that the 49-year-old was off his meds for bipolar disorder. And police were also told he had guns. But still, because he wasn't doing anything that rose to the legal definition of imminent threat, police said their hands were tied.
