Search results for

Doctors and abortion clinics are receiving their first shipments of the abortion pill that was authorized for use in the U.S. in September. In France, where RU486 was invented, it was put on the market -- with difficulty -- in 1988. Now, it accounts for one-third of all abortions there. NPR's Sarah Chayes reports from Paris that French abortions are actually decreasing; still, pharmaceutical companies want little to do with the pill.

NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports on racial disparities between African-Americans and whites when it comes to kidney transplants. A new study in this week's New England Journal of Medicine suggests that overuse of transplants in whites, coupled with socioeconomic factors among blacks accounts for the transplant gap. Providing a better social infrastructure for low-income blacks would eliminate much of the disparity.

A federal judge approves a partial settlement between WorldCom and the SEC in which the company accepts allegations of fraud and agrees to close monitoring of its corporate governance and its accounting controls. The judge defers a decision on penalties. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.

President Bush says he will continue to press for changes to Social Security, despite signs that many Americans are opposed to it. At a White House news conference, Bush says he is committed to private accounts but admits they will not fix the financial problems that loom ahead for Social Security.

According to the Pentagon, improvised explosive devices account for half of all combat deaths in Iraq. The Pentagon says by summer, all U.S. military vehicles in Iraq will have factory-produced armor. The military also is turning to high-tech solutions, including drones that can detect items buried in the ground.

According to a Government Accountability Office report, hundreds of injured Army reservists and National Guard members -- including many wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have lost medical care and pay because they were dropped from active duty status.

The intricacies of accounting fraud can be confusing, if not dull. But not always. New York Times writer Kurt Eichenwald's new book on corporate deceit and betrayal in the Enron scandal, Conspiracy of Fools, is full of riveting detail. He tells Jennifer Ludden about the reporting process.

The strategy for rebuilding Iraq must now take into account the increasingly sophisticated and organized attacks on Americans -- and Iraqis who cooperate with them. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Major General Robert Scales Ret., military consultant to NPR, and Michael Vickers, director of Strategic Studies, at the Center for Stratetgic and Budgetary Assessments.

The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer discusses The Dark Side, her nonfiction account of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies. Mayer has been nominated for a 2008 National Book Award for the work.

Health News Florida reporter Abe Aboraya works for WMFE in Orlando. He started writing for newspapers in high school. After graduating from the University of Central Florida in 2007, he spent a year traveling and working as a freelance reporter for the Seattle Times and the Seattle Weekly, and working for local news websites in the San Francisco Bay area. Most recently Abe worked as a reporter for the Orlando Business Journal. He comes from a family of health care workers.