NPR News

Pyongyang insists that sanctions be lifted and the U.S. and South Korea end joint military exercises.

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A push to make narcotic painkillers harder to abuse means that generic versions of OxyContin won't be allowed. But drugs that are more resistant to abuse are expensive and can still be addictive.

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David Greene has an eyewitness account of Wednesday night's explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas. West resident Julia Zahirniak and her son Anthony, who were across the street at West Intermediate School when the plant exploded, spoke with NPR's John Burnett.

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David Greene has the latest on Wednesday night's explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco, Texas, where at least five people are dead and more than 100 were injured.

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Pervez Musharraf, who was on trial on treason charges related to his 2007 order to arrest dozens of judges, is holed up at his residence on the outskirts of the capital, Islamabad.

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Also: Suspect in ricin letters described as conspiracist and Elvis impersonator; North Korea "sets conditions" for return to talks; and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords expresses her anger after gun bills fail in Senate.

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There were 352,000 first-time claims for unemployment insurance, up by 4,000 from the week before. The early analysis: It's a sign that the labor market's recovery, while slow, is continuing.

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Paul Kevin Curtis, the 45-year-old Mississippi man arrested Wednesday in connection with the possibly ricin-tainted envelopes sent to President Obama and at least one senator, has taken to Facebook in recent years to claim he knows of an organ-harvesting scheme. He's also an entertainer.

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Clues are still being sifted — most notably, perhaps, from video that shows a man setting down a bag and leaving the scene. No arrests have been made. Thursday morning, President Obama is at an interfaith service in Boston where the victims will be remembered.

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Also: an animated interview with David Foster Wallace; the self-publishing trend; and a spirited defense of Justin Bieber.

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As the day dawned, officials said an estimated 5 to 15 people were killed and more than 160 were wounded. It was feared those numbers might go higher. The cause of the fire that led to the explosion at a plant near Waco is under investigation.

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A massive explosion at a fertilizer plant near Waco on Wednesday injured dozens of people and killed an unknown number of others. The blast left the factory a smoldering ruin and leveled buildings for blocks in every direction.

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Most people think of Superman as a native of Krypton, or perhaps the rural Kansas village of Smallville. Not so fast, say Clevelanders. The creators of the Man of Steel grew up in the city that steel built, and this year, Cleveland is pulling out all the stops for the superhero's 75th birthday.

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The explosion was reported around 7:50 p.m. from West Fertilizer plant in West, near Waco, Texas. Local news reports say that people were trapped in a nearby nursing home and in an apartment building.

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The state of Missouri contended that because alcohol naturally dissipates in the bloodstream, each passing moment means valuable evidence is being lost, and so a warrant is never required for a blood draw. In an 8-to-1 vote, the Supreme Court disagreed.

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A new analysis of government data finds that antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause human illness were widespread in supermarket meat samples tested. The implications are significant: that the bacteria had become resistant to antibiotics back at the farm because farmers were overusing them.

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President Obama delivered an angry message to lawmakers, who shot down a gun control measure.

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The president had put his political weight behind expanded background checks. But if he couldn't get an important win on a popular measure in a Democratic-controlled Senate, what's in store for other parts of his second-term agenda?

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The number now stands at 52, the U.S. military says. The news comes just days after guards raided a section of the facility to move prisoners to single cells from their communal holding area because the detainees had covered security cameras.

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They don't want to offend Hispanic voters, but they don't want to turn off the GOP base either, says Ron Bonjean, a former Republican leadership aide. And competing for Hispanic votes is not a top priority for the sizable number of Republican rank and file who still see the bill as amnesty.

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