NPR Blogs

Yes, we've seen this before: a study showing large spending disparities to treat similar ailments and little if any link between expenditure and effectiveness.

What's different about a new analysis is the patients.

The Pacific coasts of Costa Rica, Panama and Nicaragua are no longer the focus of tsunami warnings, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center announced just after 1 p.m ET.

As we've been reporting, there was a strong — 7.6 magnitude — earthquake in Costa Rica this morning. At first, there were concerns about possible tsunamis from Mexico south to Chile. As the day continued, however, authorities gradually reduced their warnings.

When it comes to candy, most people fit into two camps — either you savor your candy, or you devour it right away.

If you're a "savorist," you'll be happy to learn that certain spherical candies can take up to a half-hour to dissolve if you don't bite into them, at least according to some research recently submitted to the journal Physics Education.

Florida A&M University, which is dealing with the deadly effects of hazing, has suspended another student group over new allegations of cruel treatment. In a statement released to member station WFSU, the university says the Torque Dance Team has been suspended immediately after a hazing incident reportedly occurred off campus last weekend.

Looking to stem the recent wave of "green on blue" attacks in which men wearing police or military uniforms have killed more than 30 U.S. or other international forces, Afghan officials said today that they have "arrested or discharged hundreds of their country's soldiers," NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Kabul.

My stepmother passed away last week. She was an extraordinary woman, full of life, who raised me since I was nine years old. In sharing the news with my older son, a graduate student in linguistics and second language acquisition at Indiana University, he said something that got me thinking: "Dad, in away, with the Internet everyone can achieve a kind of immortality. If you look for Grandma Lea I am sure you will find her. And so long as there are memory banks that are digitized, she will be there."

An estimated 14.9 percent of U.S. households — 17.9 million in total — "had difficulty" at some point last year getting food because they just didn't have enough money or other resources, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported this morning.

In 2010, 14.5 percent of households were similarly "food insecure" at some point, USDA says.

Even worse:

It's a big political victory: Pauline Marois, the head of the separatist Parti Quebecois, was elected Tuesday as Quebec's first female premier. But her celebratory speech early today was marred when a masked gunman burst into the Montreal hall and started shooting.

"For the first time in history," hundreds of millions of people in China are now wealthy enough to buy jewelry, combs and trinkets made of ivory and that's led to a huge spike in the illegal slaughtering of elephants in Africa, The New York Times' Jeffrey Gettleman said earlier today on Morning Edition.

Good morning, here are our early stories:

Democrats Unleashed Some 'Dubious Or Misleading Claims,' Fact Checkers Say.

Michelle Obama: 'Being President...Reveals Who You Are.'

And here are other morning headlines:

Before we run through the news of the day, let's pause for something spectactular: a new video from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. It shows a "massive filament" eruption on the sun that occurred last Friday. As Britain's The Register says, it is "mind-bogglingly gorgeous."

Defense Department officials say that No Easy Day, former Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette's book about the secret mission to kill Osama bin Laden, includes classified information that may harm U.S. military operations. The book went on sale yesterday despite the Pentagon's warnings of possible legal action last week.

After decades of encouragement, Americans are getting their blood pressure checked more often.

And there's a little more good news, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most adults with high blood pressure are being treated these days.

But, and you knew there had to be a but, more than half of all Americans with hypertension — about 36 million people, all told — still haven't got it under control.