National News

A satellite image combining infrared, near infrared and green light produces a colorful combination. The volcano has been blowing off steam, and lava, this week.

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Frustration over a change in federal copyright policy making it illegal to unlock a new cellphone has resulted in more than 100,000 signatures on a petition at the White House's website, meaning the executive branch must now respond to the call to overturn the policy.

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The senators cited Hagel's lackluster confirmation hearing performance and his views on Iran. The White House said it would not back down from the nomination.

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The New Y0rk Times Company owns the Boston Globe. It has for 20 years. Now, it wants to sell The Globe. And that got Marketplace thinking: What would it take to expand our media empire, starting with the Boston Globe? Now, we're not going to do a public radio pledge drive to raise money to buy the paper. But if we could? I asked media analyst Ken Doctor, who writes the blog Newsonomics, if we should try.

"This is a great buy," Doctor says, without hesitation. He points out that the Globe's newsroom hasn't been gutted, like other papers. It's 365 staff members strong. Plus, adding The Globe would let Marketplace try for the golden fleece of media: convergence. We could be pioneers who bring words, audio, video and digital everything together in one company. In addition, the paper still makes money -- about $20 million a year. So, what should we pay?

"A hundred million would be about four to five times that annual profit, and that is what these newspapers are going for these days," Doctor says.

So I had Kai Ryssdal call our company's chief operating officer in Minnesota, Dave Kansas.

He said no.

"A hundred million is a steal? For dead trees?" he said.

No way.

Maybe just as well, since journalism professor Jeff Jarvis at City University of New York says the Globe, while a great brand, also has major downsides. Debt, pension, big, old facilities, unions and "other difficulties of life" being just a few on his list. Jarvis says we'd have to be prepared to be the bad guys.

"Could you go through the painful process of reducing the Boston Globe to boston.com?"

Massive layoffs and axing the printed paper edition are inevitable, he says, as the Globe undergoes the same digital march so many other papers have taken. Besides, we don't have that $100 million to invest anyway. Let's just ensure our own survival first.

Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott is now urging his state to expand Medicaid under President Obama's health care overhaul, a significant policy shift after it was Scott who helped lead the charge against the new health care law.

But the question states like Florida aren't facing isn't just a political one -- it's economic as well.

Think about it: Washington picks up the tab on expanding Medicaid for the first three years, what’s not to love about that?

Starting next year, individuals and families who earn up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level -- about $25,000 for a family of three -- will become eligible for Medicaid. And the government will pick up 100 percent of the tab.

Again: What’s not to love?

“Well, first of all they don’t pick up 100 percent of the tab,” says Ed Haislmaier, a senior researcher fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

OK?

“The first three years the federal government pays 100 percent of the benefits costs, not the administrative costs,” he says.

But Haislmaier admits that’s small change. The big hit comes when the three years are up and the federal match starts to taper off to 90 percent.

“In Florida, by 2020, this is going to cost $832 million a year,” says Haislmaier.

Plus, the recession pushed more people into poverty and onto Medicaid and state budgets shrank. Expanding Medicaid now is just too expensive. Haislmaier says it doesn’t matter how sweet the offer from Washington.

“That’s like saying I’m going to give you a car and pay 90 percent. If you don’t have the other 10 percent, that’s not a great deal,” he says.

It’s true, states would have to cough up some dough: $5.5 billion over the next decade in the case of Florida.

Urban Institute economist John Holahan says it’s worth it. For every dollar Florida spends, it gets $12 back from the feds.

“There just aren’t that many ways to get that kind of a return, if you are a state official,” he says.

It all comes down to where the state officials want to spend taxpayer dollars, says Joan Alker of the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute. No matter what, she say, you can’t wish away the problem of the uninsured.

“This allows states to use taxpayer dollars in a smarter way by giving them primary and preventive care up front rather than waiting until they get sicker and wind up in the emergency room,” she says.

Alker says the reality in some states is elected leaders will have to spend political capital if they want to make financial sense.

In early 2012, experiments that made H5N1 bird flu more contagious caused an uproar. People feared that mutant viruses could escape the lab and kill people. To prevent a repeat, the government has unveiled a policy describing how scientists should study dangerous pathogens and toxins.

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In early 2012, experiments that made H5N1 bird flu more contagious caused an uproar. People feared that mutant viruses could escape the lab and kill people. To prevent a repeat, the government has unveiled a policy describing how scientists should study dangerous pathogens and toxins.

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When I was a kid growing up in the last century and there was a new song I liked, I’d wait by the radio to catch it. But that equation has changed, says Camy Jun, a 20-year-old sophomore at Chapman College.

“At home listening to music, I’ll either listen to YouTube or iTunes and I listen to the radio when I’m in the car, but never outside of that,” says Jun.

And when Jun hears a song on the radio she likes, she goes to YouTube to find it. And that’s also where she discovers new music.

“Everybody always knew that there was a lot of consumption and that Youtube is a phenomenal venue to break new artist and break new songs,” said Robert Kyncl, the head of global content at YouTube. He says YouTube’s been part of the music hit-making ecosystem for quite a while now.

“We are part of the ecosytem, we shouldn’t be isolated and sit out there on an island,” Kyncl said.

Billboard has been including data from major streaming music sites like Spotify and Rhapsody but it just started including YouTube today. And that’s put the "Harlem Shake" -- a song that’s also become a popular video meme on YouTube -- to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. "Harlem Shake" is the first song by a virtual unknown to hit the top of the charts.

Andrea Domanick is an entertainment writer at the Las Vegas Sun. She says if artists want a song to be a hit, it’s almost essential to have it on YouTube.

“There’s been maybe one or two occasions where I have not been able to find a song I wanted to listen to on YouTube and it’s been incredibly frustrating,” said Domanick. “And I remember thinking, what, why, how does this person not have this song up? Do they not want people to hear their music?”

Domanick says YouTube is basically the new radio, and it’s about time Billboard acknowledged it.

The blasts took place near government and military buildings in one of the deadliest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago.

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The birds are roaming the town of Albany on the east side of San Francisco Bay. They're messy, they're loud and they can be aggressive. And if you don't think they can be scary, check how freaked out one California TV producer got when she encountered just one turkey in another town.

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Corporate tax credits improved its profits, but those were tempered by the payroll tax increase on its customers.

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The Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case challenging a Voting Rights Act provision that requires some states to receive federal approval for elections rule changes. Shelby County says the system is outdated, but some black officials argue it's still necessary to ensure diverse voices in government.

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Actually, it's all kinds of fruits and vegetables. A circuit board called the MaKey MaKey is allowing musicians to play music on produce, to awesome effect. Watch the video.

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South Carolina's Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, rattled off the death toll during a talk Tuesday. But the CIA and Pentagon have not released official figures.

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About half want a new pope to drive the church in a new direction; the other half want a traditionalist. Most American Catholics, however, would approve of a pope who wants to allow priests to marry.

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Last school year, 29 current and recent students at Harper High School in Chicago were shot. Eight of them died. The public radio show This American Life sent reporters to the school for a full semester, to find out more about living in what's being called a war zone. Tell Me More host Michel Martin finds out what they learned.

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Millions of Americans rely on social security for their livelihood. But the program is at the center of the government's debate over spending cuts — and it's facing its own financial troubles. Host Michel Martin speaks with Michael Astrue, former Social Security Commissioner, about his views on the program's biggest issues.

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You can learn a lot about a culture by listening to its music. NPR producer Jasmine Garsd took a reporting trip to Puerto Rico recently. She found that the island's uncertain economic future not only affects day-to-day life, but also its music. Garsd shares some songs with host Michel Martin.

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It's now the largest park in the world to be given the International Dark-Sky Association's top honor. Skies there "offer views close to what could be seen before the rise of cities." We've got the list of 19 other places the association cites.

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When the giant winter storm Nemo hit New England two weeks ago, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Generating Station in Plymouth, Mass., lost outside power for several days. Diesel backups took over operating the reactors' cooling system. Pilgrim has the same kind of reactors that failed less than two years ago at Fukushima, Japan, after an earthquake and tsunami crippled offsite power and emergency back-ups. The Pilgrim incident comes as the U.S. nuclear industry is fighting proposed new safety measures meant for a crisis that might begin exactly this way.

Of the 104 reactors in the U.S., 31 are very like those in Fukushima, that lost power, melted down and exploded. I'm entering one of them, the Dresden Nuclear Station, about an hour southwest of Chicago.

View GE Mk I & Mk II Reactors in the U.S. in a larger map

After Fukushima, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission studied what happened. Should it require new safety measures here, even though a crisis is very unlikely?

It's not zero," says Charles Casto, director of NRC Region III, the Midwest. "Hah. The probability's not zero; it's something."

Region III has about two dozen reactors. We spoke at Casto's office. Nuclear regulation, he said, is about possibility more than probability.

"You take your best -- based on history...you know, what has history shown you that the probability would be?" Casto said. "But that doesn't mean zero."

The Fukushima reactors, and their 31 U.S. cousins, including Dresden and the Pilgrim Station, are old Mk I and II boiling water reactors, built by General Electric. The safety enclosures for the reactors are too small. If their cores start to melt down, the containments could fail in several ways, including radioactive hydrogen gas building up and exploding ...as at Fukushima. There's an increasingly politicized dispute between the industry and the NRC over how to make preventing meltdowns safer.

Dresden, the first commercial nuclear plant in the country, is operated by the largest nuclear energy company in the U.S. -- Exelon Generation. It looks dated but extremely well maintained. It hums.

Gregory Roach, the senior NRC inspector here, showed me back-ups on backups on backups, flood protection, fire protection. An hour into the tour, we came to the part I most wanted to see -- the venting system.

"We showed you where the hardened vents were for the dry well, so now this is downstream," Roach said.

He was pointing to a pipe overhead that exits the container wall. The vent system...if power fails, and the back-ups fail, and radioactive hydrogen builds up, you can probably save the reactors by venting the hydrogen.

"And this pipe goes up to the main stack, 300 feet, and then releases into the environment," Roach said.

The Japanese vents mostly didn't work; that's what caused the explosions.

"So you learn a lesson of Fukushima Daiichi," Casto said. "And then you put in standards and say your vent must be able to operate under those conditions."

A year ago, the NRC issued a new order: vents must be reliable.

"Does that mean during an accident you have to be able to get access to it?" Casto asked. "Does that mean you have to do it remotely?

The industry and the NRC are working on it; the industry has until the end of 2016.

Now, here's what the fight is about: do the vents at these 31 plants also need filters? Because, in the best of conditions, some radioactive gas and particles may escape in venting -- and in the very, very unlikely worst of conditions, a lot could escape.

"You have to establish the 'what if'," Casto said. "What if it does happen? What if the improable happens?"

Reactor cores hold dozens of tons of radioactive material. At Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979, about half the core melted, but the containment held, and the venting was relatively minor. We don't yet know how much escaped from Fukushima; it's too dangerous to go look. But there are scenarios in which it's possible to lose a good part of those dozens of tons through the vents. With filters, virtually all of it is captured.

To a layperson, nuclear regulation can be almost as daunting as nuclear physics. The Dresden plant is a wonder of machine technology -- in it I got reacquainted with the idea of awe.

The NRC process for new rules...that's messier.

The chances of a reactor ever needing a filter are so small that you can't justify the cost. But the NRC staff concluded that the consequences of no-filter could be so bad, they should be required anyway. By NRC procedures, if the staff wants to override normal cost-benefit standards, the five commissioners have to vote to approve, and the fight is on.

A week after the NRC staff testified for filters in January, 21 House Re-publicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee sent the NRC a letter admonishing the staff. There is plenty of money at stake.

"External filter vents would be an additional approximately $15-20 million per unit," said David Czufin, an engineer who runs the Dresden plant for Exelon.

Exelon has 10 more of these reactors, so filters could cost the company more than $200 million -- on top of many other precautions, he said.

"Additional connections, additional equipment, stored equipment for readiness..."

Exelon does plan to spend $400 million in the next three years for post-Fukushima modifications, some of that for vents -- but not filters.

"The one thing I would tell you is that the Fukushima event, we have learned a lot from it," Czufin said. "We continue to look at how the plant in Japan was operated differently from my plant."

He's right; they are different. The independent Japanese commission on Fukushima says so: U.S. plants are much better regulated, run and prepared. And nuclear is already at a competitive disadvantage, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, natural gas plants can produce electricity for about 40 percent less. If the industry loses this one, it's going to hurt.

A last question for the director of NRC Region III, Charles Casto. Is he satisfied now that under circumstances like Fukushima Daiichi, he has the technology to operate vents at the stations that are under his authority?

"Yes, we believe that we have reliable vents and that the operators can do a controlled vent in a reliable way during an accident," Casto said.

But unusual things do happen, as at the Pilgrim Station. Without the filters, there is a very small chance that those vents might become a kind of radioactive fire hose. That's what the fight is about.

The NRC Commissioners are voting on this now -- a process that can take weeks, or longer.