State and National News

Tell Me More will celebrate National Poetry Month in April with its 3rd annual 'Muses and Metaphor' series. Listeners can tweet their short poems using the hashtag: TMM Poetry.

Every American president since Harry Truman has wrestled with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to no avail. Yet they keep trying based on the notion that the Middle East will never be calm until there's peace between these protagonists.

But as President Obama heads to Israel and the West Bank, expectations could hardly be lower. What's more, this long-standing feud, often seen as the holy grail of American diplomacy, no longer seems to hold the same urgency, according to many analysts.

Most people are aware of the positive effects of breast-feeding. But in many areas of the country, breast-feeding is not the cultural norm, and there's little support available for mothers. Host Michel Martin talks with Kimberly Seals Allers, the co-author of a new report on so-called "first food deserts," and a nursing mother, Areti Gourzis.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, the president of Xavier University of Louisiana has been on the job for 45 years now and he's guided the school through many storms, including Hurricane Katrina. Norman Francis will be with us in just a few minutes to share his wisdom about higher education and other issues. But first, a hot button issue we've been following had its day in the Supreme Court yesterday.

The buns ... er, puns ... seem endless:

Lululemon, the yoga and running clothier, concedes in a letter to its customers that some of the black "luon women's bottoms" it has been selling since early March aren't quite covering their "guests" the way they should.

As Lululemon puts it, there's been some "increased sheerness."

In Chinua Achebe's novel The Anthills of the Savannah, one of the characters says, "Poets don't give prescriptions. They give headaches."

The same is true of novelists, and none more so than Philip Roth. If any writer has ever enjoyed rattling people's skulls, it's this son of Newark, N.J., who's currently enjoying something of a victory lap in the media on the occasion of his 80th birthday. The celebration reaches its peak with a new documentary — Philip Roth Unmasked — that will screen on PBS next week as part of the American Masters series.

This is the first in a series of commentaries by Adam on the theme of "How To See The World In A Grain Of Sand." Stay tuned to All Things Considered and 13.7 for future installments!

More than two centuries ago, the great poet William Blake offered the world the most extraordinary of possibilities:

To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower,

The 16-year-old girl raped by two Ohio high school football players in a crime that has attracted wide attention has also been the victim of online harassment, the state's top prosecutor said late Monday.

If the idea of sharing your personal medical troubles with your doctor and a bunch of total strangers gives you sweaty palms, you're not alone.

Yet, a growing number of people are swallowing hard and doing it. Along the way, they're discovering that they can get more time with the doctor and learn a few things from their fellow patients by forgoing a one-on-one appointment for a group medical visit.

Flanked by supporters, Louisiana District 3 Rep. Barbara Norton of Shreveport explained her motivations yesterday for filing a bill that would require the state to sign on to an expansion of the Medicaid program and participate in the Affordable Care Act. Estimates are that up to 400,000 more Louisianans could be eligible for Medicaid next year and thereafter if the state chose to expand the program, with the federal government picking up most of the tab. Gov. Bobby Jindal has criticized such a move, calling Medicaid an inefficient and poorly managed program.