NPR Blogs

A day after resigning under pressure from U.S. Speedskating, former head coach Jae Su Chun says he didn't report a tampering incident at an international meet last year to protect skater Simon Cho, who confessed to sabotaging a Canadian athlete's skate blade.

"I know I chose Simon over my own principles," Chun says in a written statement translated from Korean by a spokesman.

The figures are in for the federal government's fiscal 2012 and the deficit was $1.089 trillion, according to the Treasury Department and Office of Management and Budget.

That's less than the previous year's $1.297 trillion and is the third consecutive decline.

But it's also the fourth year in a row of a $1 trillion+ gap between spending and revenues.

Are you one of the fans who have ponied up dough for a meet-and-greet with a favorite band or pop star, as is becoming an increasing trend these days? Have you ever purchased an elusive record or song on the Internet, rather than scouring used record stores and flea markets until you hit pay dirt? Did you once decide to skip a concert, confident in the knowledge that if something truly unexpected happened, you'd be able to catch it later on YouTube?

If so, then Caroline Sullivan would like you to know something: You're Doing It Wrong.

Reporting by the Charleston Gazette this week suggests that the Obama administration's efforts to impose tough new limits on miners' exposure to coal dust have stalled.

The United Mine Workers Union suggests election year politics may be the reason.

Two days after the United States Anti-Doping Agency's release of the evidence it says shows that cyclist Lance Armstrong was part of "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen," the head of the Tour de France has said the world's most famous race will officially have no winners of the seven Tours that Armstrong won if he is stripped of those titles.

Researchers have found that kids with autism spectrum disorder who did yoga at their elementary school behaved better than kids with autism who weren't doing yoga.

The researchers surveyed teachers at a school in the Bronx who said a daily yoga program reduced the kids' aggressive behavior, social withdrawal and hyperactivity.

When Linda Holmes announced that she'd miss this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour for a much-needed vacation, we all knew the real reason: She was holing up to read Arnold Schwarzenegger's new memoir, Total Recall, without the petty distractions of day-to-day life.

A life well-worth noting has caught the attention of obituary writers:

-- "Andrew F. Brimmer, a Louisiana sharecropper's son who was the first black member of the Federal Reserve Board and who led efforts to to reverse the country's balance-of-payments deficit, died on Sunday in Washington. He was 86." (The New York Times)

In the decade or so following the retreat of the Disney princess model, children's animated movies have leaned toward thematic gimmicks of various kinds. All the characters will be of a certain type — zoo animals, has-been superheroes, parrots, frantic fish — and this frames the marketing, offers up a hook for eager young moviegoers. But this fall, besides additional Madagascar and Ice Age installments, the most popular mode for these fantasy flicks is a spectre out of the past: classic Hollywood horror and monster movies.

Fidel Castro's son, Alex Castro, is batting away rumors that his father, the former leader of Cuba, had died.

"The commander is fine, doing his daily things, reading, exercising," Alex Castro said.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of malarkey," Vice President Biden said during Thursday's debate as he challenged Rep. Paul Ryan's assertion that U.S. foreign policy has unraveled under President Obama.

A little later in the debate, Biden said Ryan's criticisms were "a bunch of stuff" — and when moderator Martha Raddatz asked "what does that mean?" he said, "we Irish call it malarkey."

Biden's use of the word has many asking: Where does it come from?

"U.S. consumer sentiment unexpectedly rose to its highest in five years in October as consumers became more optimistic about the economy in a possible boost to President Obama's reelection hopes," Reuters reports.