NPR 2011-01-12

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Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is able to breathe on her own, but doctors says they’re keeping her on a breathing tube to protect her airway¹, and they have cut back her sedation. Giffords is the only one of the 14 survivors² of Saturday’s shooting in Tucson who’re still listed in critical condition. Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old man accused of trying to assassinate³ Giffords, made his first court appearance yesterday. Family members of some of victims are speaking after the first time since the shooting. NPR’s Jeff Brady, who’s in Tucson, recounts the story of Bill Hileman, whose wife was among those gunned down.

Bill Hileman is the husband of Suzi Hileman. She was injured in the shooting, and she was the woman who took nine-year-old Christina Green to see Representative Giffords that day and were told that Suzi Hileman has been sort of coming in and out of a morphine-induced haze⁴ and recalling certain parts of the events. And she has been told that Christina Green did not survive that attack, and Bill Hileman, Suzi’s husband, says that that’s gonna be a difficult thing for her to deal with in coming years. NPR’s Jeff Brady.

Funeral arrangements are under way for the six people killed in Saturday’s rampage at a shopping complex. The Tucson community plans to hold Mass tonight and a memorial service tomorrow which President Obama is expected to attend.

The Northeastern US is in for a third snowstorm in less than three weeks, the same system that hit the Southeast. Some areas from Louisiana to North Caroline got nearly a foot of snow. NPR’s Kathy Lohr reports freezing temperatures continue to cause hazardous⁶ conditions.

Atlanta streets are mostly deserted⁷, and some drivers who have ventured out are clogging⁸ the roads and major interstate highways. The few snow plows⁹ as it has are working to keep major routes open, and some are trying to free a dozens of tractor-trailers stuck along ice-covered interstates. Schools are closed for a second day; many businesses remain shut down; and thousands of flights are again canceled at Atlanta’s airport. At least nine people have died in weather-related traffic accidents across the South. More snow and ice are predicted for parts of the Southeast before the system heads north, where it’s expected to dump heavy snow from Pennsylvania to New York and into New England by Wednesday. Kathy Lohr, NPR News, Atlanta.

In his visit to Afghanistan, Vice⁵ President Joe Biden said American troops could stay past a scheduled 2014 security handover if Afghanistan’s government wanted that. While visiting Kabul, Biden told Afghanistan leader Hamid Karzai that while the US is not in Afghanistan to govern, it will support the Afghanistan people in rebuilding. American troops are scheduled to start withdrawing from Afghanistan this July.

At last check on Wall street, the Dow was up nearly 30 points at 11,665.

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In Germany today, a scandal over elevated levels of dioxin in the food supply prompted authorities to kill hundreds of pigs after tests showed high levels of the cancer-causing chemical in some swine. As NPR’s Eric Westervelt reports, the dioxin problem in the country has now widen beyond poultry¹⁰ and eggs.

Authorities in the northwest German state of Lower Saxony found elevated levels of dioxin in swine flu for the first time and ordered all the pigs at one farm to be killed. Before today’s pig farm discovery, the excessive levels of dioxin had been found only in eggs and some chicken meat, which prompted hundreds of farms to be closed last week. Many farms have now reopened, but more than 500 remain closed today. Government tests on fat products used in feed pellets have found feed containing more than 70 times the allowed amount of dioxin. German authorities are now investigating how fat products reserved for industrial use ended up in animal feed. Germany’s agriculture minister now wants to prohibit companies from producing both industrial fats and fats used for livestock¹¹. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, Berlin.

The words you write on Twitter can reveal a lot about where you live. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University studied 380,000 messages on the social networking site and found a chockful of regional dialects. There obvious one such as “you-all” in the South. Not so obvious to researchers were such as “s-u-t-t-i-n-suttin” in New York City, shorthand for something. Interest in this area of language is growing rapidly among the linguists¹² underscoring that Georgetown University reportedly will hold a conference this year examining new media speech.