NPR News

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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Ricin is a naturally occurring toxin that's found in castor beans. Castor-oil plants, the source of beans, are popular with gardeners. You can get sick by eating beans. But purified ricin can be made pretty easily and used for no-good.

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The defeat of the measure by a 54-46 vote — six votes shy of the number needed to clear the Senate — marks a major setback for gun-control advocates

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Scientists say the genome of the coelacanth shows that it may not be as closely related as the lungfish to the first creatures to emerge from the sea.

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Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is hoping to put a marital scandal behind him with a return to Congress in a May 7 special election. But just two days later, Sanford must defend himself from an accusation that he was at his ex-wife's house without her permission.

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Damascus would normally host a parade on independence day. But the streets are largely empty, aside from jittery government security forces manning checkpoints.

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In a ruling Wednesday, the court limited the reach of a 224-year-old federal law that in recent decades has been used to hold foreign corporations and individuals accountable in U.S. courts for human-rights abuses abroad. The decision is seen as a loss for human-rights advocates.

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The days of made-to-order ice cream are far from over in San Francisco. A small shop that operates out of an old shipping container uses liquid nitrogen to freeze ingredients together in about a minute for an ultra-fresh, ultra-smooth treat.

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A new strain of bird flu has sickened 82 people and killed 18 in China. But many people who have caught the H7N9 flu say they hadn't been near poultry or other birds. So what's fueling the outbreak of the virus?

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Protests over a razor-thin victory by Hugo Chávez's hand-picked successor left seven dead on Tuesday.

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Antares is designed to ferry cargo to the International Space Station. The two-stage rocket, a milestone for commercial space flight, is scheduled to lift off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on Wednesday.

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Pressure cooker bombs have long been used in places such as Afghanistan and Pakistan because they are cheap, easy to build and inconspicuous. They rely on basic principles of physics to amplify their explosive power.

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The bombing of Boston's storied marathon struck at more than a crowded city street — it attacked a living reservoir of American heritage, culture and intellectualism.

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