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Sweetness And Light
9:03 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

The Man Who Painted Sport, Bright and Beautiful

Credit Kathy Willens / AP
Artist LeRoy Neiman, who died last week at 91, signs serigraphs of baseball's Mike Piazza (left) in 2000.

Originally published on Wed June 27, 2012 11:44 am

Framed in my library is a sketch that LeRoy Neiman dashed off of me on the back of a menu, when he was watching me speak several years ago. LeRoy, who died the other day, was somewhat better known for another sketch, the "nymphette" that has appeared in Playboy since 1955 — but, of course, he's ever famous for simply being our most celebrated sports artist.

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Remembrances
8:06 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

Nora Ephron, Filmmaker, Is Dead at 71

Originally published on Tue June 26, 2012 8:41 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

The writer Nora Ephron has died. Over the course of six decades, she chronicled the lives of women in newsprint, in books, on the stage and on screen. She was 71 years old, and died of complications from a blood disorder. She's best known for romantic comedies such as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "When Harry Met Sally," but she also brought to the big screen Karen Silkwood and Julia Child.

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U.S.
6:27 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

Future Murky For Arizona's Immigration Law

As Arizona officials prepare to apply the one provision of the state's immigration law upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, some local authorities doubt they can properly enforce it.

"We will do our best to enforce the law. But we are in uncharted territory on this issue," Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said in a statement released by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit organization of police chiefs. The group says the law "will seriously undermine local law enforcement."

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Sports
6:18 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

BCS Presidents Approve Four-Team College Football Playoff

Originally published on Tue June 26, 2012 8:06 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

At long last, big-time college football has a playoff, if you want to call four teams a playoff. Today, a committee of university presidents agreed to a system that replaces the current Bowl Championship Series beginning in 2014.

NPR's sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins me now. And, Tom, this is something that college football fans have wanted for years. President Obama has said he wants this championship game. What do you know about the deal?

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The Two-Way
5:56 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

'Guardian' Publishes More Allegations Of Collusion In Mexican Presidential Race

Credit John Moore / Getty Images
Student protesters stage a demonstration front of Mexico's Federal Election Commission on Tuesday in Mexico City.

Originally published on Tue June 26, 2012 6:01 pm

Two big pieces of news in Mexico's presidential race today:

-- A new poll finds that the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto has maintained a big lead over his rivals Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Josefina Vázquez Mota. The election is this Sunday and a few polls before this one showed Obrador had narrowed the gap.

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The Two-Way
5:26 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

BCS Presidents Approve Four-Team College Football Playoff

Credit Gerald Herbert / AP
The Coaches' Trophy is displayed before the BCS National Championship game between the LSU and Alabama in New Orleans. College football will finally have a playoff.

Originally published on Tue June 26, 2012 5:40 pm

The college football champion will be decided by a playoff beginning after the 2014 season.

The AP reports:

"Come 2014, the BCS is dead. A committee of university presidents on Tuesday approved the BCS commissioners' plan for a four-team playoff to start in the 2014 season.

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Shots - Health Blog
4:47 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

Dementia Complicates Romance In Nursing Homes

Credit iStockphoto.com
Holding hands is the easy part.

Originally published on Thu June 28, 2012 7:45 am

Relationships are never easy.

If the partners in love happen to be living in a nursing home, there are even more challenges. And if they're showing signs of dementia, then things get really tricky.

Although no law forbids intimate relationships between people with dementia in nursing homes, staff and family members often discourage residents from expressing their sexuality, says a recent report in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

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Music
4:36 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

Third Time's The Charm: J-Lo And Pitbull 'Dance Again'

Credit Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
Jennifer Lopez and Pitbull perform onstage at the 2011 American Music Awards in Los Angeles.

Originally published on Thu June 28, 2012 11:34 am

Movie Reviews
4:26 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

'Gypsy': Something's Rotten, This Time In Slovakia

Dad just died violently. Mom married the man who might be his killer. And now the dead man's ghost is appearing to his son.

That plot comes from Hamlet, of course, but Slovak director Martin Sulik's Gypsy is not otherwise Shakespearean. There are no soliloquies and little dialogue. The prince is 15 and inarticulate, and his Ophelia is entirely sane. She's about to be exiled from her community for the same reasons that nearly everyone else in this tale is victimized: poverty and prejudice.

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Sports
4:22 pm
Tue June 26, 2012

Ready, Set, Sail: America's Cup Back In Rhode Island

Originally published on Tue June 26, 2012 8:06 pm

An America's Cup sailing event is being held to Newport, R.I., for the first time in 29 years. Sailors began arriving in Newport last week for the final leg of the America's Cup World Series regatta, which has been held at stops all across the world to gin up excitement for the official America's Cup next year in San Francisco.

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