NPR News

The sweeping anti-immigration law passed by Arizona in 2010, received another buffet today: A panel of the the San Francisco-based U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stood with a lower court, ruling that a ban on drivers soliciting day laborers violates the constitution's free speech guarantee.

Bloomberg News does a good job at laying out the legal issues in the case:

"Life-threatening fire ant attack" may sound like a B-movie script, but for people living in the Southern third of the United States, it's no joke.

These ant stings can cause deadly allergic reactions, but most people aren't getting the allergy shots that could save their lives, a new study says.

Fire ants sting people, just like bees do, and 2 to 3 percent of people are allergic to the ant's venom. But where bee stings are rare, fire ant stings are incredibly common for people who live in Texas and other Southern states.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect on Friday are already causing headaches at the nation's airports.

"Now that we are having to reduce or eliminate basically overtime both for TSA and for customs, now that we have instituted a hiring freeze... we will begin today sending out furlough notices," Napolitano said, according to Politico.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Ari Shapiro in Washington; Neal Conan is away. Year by year, cities are raising fees and cutting public services to stay out of financial trouble. For some cities, that's just not enough. Detroit projects a $200 million deficit this year, and the city owes $14 billion in long-term obligations. The state's Republican Governor Rick Snyder says there's probably no city more financially challenged in the entire United States.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

And now for the Opinion Page. Technology has always promised to fix our imperfections. In this 1950s TV ad, G.E. swore that a new refrigerator-freezer combo would make a housewife's problems disappear.

(SOUNDBITE OF ADVERTISEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We didn't have all this storage space in the door or conveniences like a butter conditioner, sliding shelves.

Ed. Note: This article was originally published Nov. 2, 2011.

Photographer Jon Crispin has a fascination with things that are left behind. Those are his exact words. "Even as a kid I was trying to get into places I shouldn't go," he says on the phone.

In the '80s he was basically given free rein to document abandoned asylums in New York state. He has also worked closely and often with the New York State Museum, including on some Sept. 11 preservation projects.

The head of a California retirement home where a nurse last week refused to administer CPR to an elderly woman says his staff followed policy in handling the emergency.

In a written statement, Jeffrey Toomer, the executive director of Glenwood Gardens in Bakersfield, Calif., says it is the facility's practice "to immediately call emergency medical personnel for assistance and to wait with the individual needing attention until such personnel arrives. ... That is the protocol we followed."

President Obama rounds out his Cabinet for his second term, nominating three new leaders Monday: Walmart Foundation's Sylvia Mathews Burwell for budget chief, MIT scientist Ernest Moniz to head the Energy Department and veteran regulator Gina McCarthy to run the EPA — a post that's likely be a lightning rod during Senate confirmations.