NPR News

It's human nature to hope for positive results after spending months or even years conducting a research study. In well-designed studies, however, scientists identify in advance the criteria for success, so their optimism won't color their conclusions when the study is completed.

Many times what happens far away ends up coded in numbers and officialdom.

Like this weekend, a blast near NATO headquarters in Afghanistan killed at least six. NPR's Dana Farrington noted that a suicide bomber blew himself up near the entrance of Camp Eggers, where many children who work on the streets set up to sell trinkets.

Today, we get the heartbreaking news that six of the dead were children and four of them were part of the Skateistan program.

Mitt Romney seemed to make health care news in a Sunday interview on NBC's Meet the Press.

He said he might not want to repeal all of the Affordable Care Act.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The mayor of New Jersey's capital city faces corruption charges that could send him to prison for decades. The FBI arrested Tony Mack in Trenton today. Prosecutors accused the mayor, his brother and a top political supporter of an extortion scheme worth more than $100,000. Here's NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.

Around the country there are moves to tighten restrictions on voters at the polls, some of which fall under the purview of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Melissa Block takes a step back with voting and election law expert Nate Persily of Columbia University, to talk about the Voting Rights Act, and in particular Section 5. That provision, originally aimed at states in the South, requires certain states, counties and townships to get "pre-clearance" from the federal government before changing laws that affect voters.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Why do children and teens become overweight? The answer to that question is not as straightforward as counting calories. NPR's Allison Aubrey has this story about a study published today in the journal Pediatrics. It suggests that the eating habits of overweight teens are not all that different from their healthy-weight peers.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

Relentless fundraising efforts paid off last month for President Obama and Mitt Romney. Their campaign said today they each took in more than $110 million.

NPR's Peter Overby has details.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

The debate over same-sex marriage has collided with the world of professional football in a loud and public way. Let's roll back. It started with Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo, who's a vocal supporter of legalizing same-sex marriage, an issue on the Maryland ballot this November.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

For more on this and for a sense of how and why the school situation in Chicago affects the ongoing conversation about education policy across the country, we have Stephen Sawchuk. He's the assistant editor for Education Week. He joins us from Chicago. Welcome, Stephen.

STEPHEN SAWCHUK: Hi, Audie. Thanks so much for having me.

CORNISH: So, first, give us a sense of where Chicago school district fits in the national picture these days. I mean, how does Chicago schools compare with those in other big cities?

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

In Chicago today, teachers walked picket lines at more than 600 schools. It's the city's first teacher strike in 25 years. Over the weekend, negotiators failed to reach agreement on a contract. They're back at the bargaining table today in hopes of sending 350,000 students back to school before the public's patience wears thin.

From member station WBEZ in Chicago, Becky Vevea has the story.

The web hosting company GoDaddy has been experiencing severe outages today. Many of its members are complaining that their service is down.

How wide this outage spreads is hard to tell, but GoDaddy aknowledged it was having problems on its Twitter stream.

"We're aware of the trouble people are having with our site," it said. "We're working on it."