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Black voters showed up at the polls at higher rates than whites in last year's presidential election, driving the rate of minority participation to historic levels, a new government report shows.

A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study underlines the extent to which airlines have cut back service, especially at smaller airports, in order to return to profitability.

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Now to a key part of the Affordable Care Act.

GOVERNOR EARL RAY TOMBLIN: We have weighed the options and believe expanding Medicaid is the best choice for West Virginia.

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)

The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning work Thursday on a proposal to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. Audie Cornish talks with Adam Davidson of the Planet Money team about what academic research says about the economic impact of immigration.

Much was made on election night about the importance of minority voter turnout. On Wednesday, the U.S. Census Bureau released new data on the racial and ethnic breakdown of voters in the 2012 presidential election. The census data provides better figures than what was available from exit polls.

Charges are expected Wednesday in Cleveland, where three women who'd been missing for years have been rescued.

Four people will share the reward money associated with the capture of former Los Angeles Police Department officer Christopher Dorner. He was the cop who went on a killing spree after being dismissed from the force.

The 17-year-old soccer goalie who allegedly punched and killed a referee during a game in Utah last month faces a charge of "homicide by assault" and may be tried as an adult.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill sought the charge in a petition filed with a juvenile court Wednesday. Gill is also seeking to have the unidentified suspect certified as an adult.

Three witnesses billed as whistle-blowers appeared before a House committee Wednesday to challenge the Obama administration's explanation of what transpired on Sept. 11, 2012, as the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was attacked and the ambassador and three others killed.

Age-related macular degeneration is the major cause of blindness in older people, and the culprit in more than half of all cases of blindness in the United States.

There's no cure for the condition, so scientists have been hard at work trying to come up with ways to hold it at bay.

The Carnival Cruise ship Triumph is traveling again, having left the terminal in Mobile, Ala., where it was forced to dock in February after severe problems with its engines led to its being towed across the Gulf of Mexico.

The odyssey of the ship, whose 3,143 passengers endured days without consistent running water and electrical services, attracted national attention as it drifted at sea before heading to the Alabama coast.

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I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up, as we approach Mother's Day this Sunday, we're checking out a new book. It's called "What My Mother Gave Me." It's about the special gift mothers give their daughters. That's just ahead.

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This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. Coming up, we are going to talk about some controversies in hip hop recently that raise questions about just what crosses the line now between what's acceptable and what isn't and who decides that. That's coming up later in the program.

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It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I'm David Greene. Good morning.

When you consider the amazing discovery of three kidnapped women living in Cleveland, two thoughts come to mind about the neighborhood. The first is about the decency of Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who rescued Amanda Berry as she tried to escape.

INSKEEP: A natural second thought is to wonder if the women were held prisoner for a decade, how could it be that nobody saved them sooner?

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When Charles Ramsey talked with a 911 operator about the woman he'd found, the operator had this question.

(SOUNDBITE OF 911 CALL)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Can you ask her if she needs an ambulance?

CHARLES RAMSEY: You need an ambulance or what? She needs everything. She's in a panic. I bet she's been kidnapped, so you know, put yourself in her shoes.

INSKEEP: Put yourself in her shoes.

NPR's Carrie Johnson reports law enforcement is trying to do just that.

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The people of Lewiston, Maine, are on edge. Over the past week, fires have destroyed eight apartment buildings and left nearly 200 people homeless. Two 12-year-old boys have been arrested.

But as Susan Sharon of Maine Public Radio reports, the city still has a big problem on its hands: A surplus of condemned and vacant buildings.

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The discovery of the three women in Cleveland has overshadowed another story here in Washington, about an 83-year-old woman found dead yesterday near Reagan National Airport. Victoria Kong suffered short-term memory loss. She arrived at the airport Friday on a flight, but went missing after wandering off on foot. The stories, taken together, paint a broad and varied picture of what it means to be missing in America, and the two cases sent us looking at the latest missing-persons numbers.

It's hard out here for a black man the Internet accidentally thrusts into the limelight. Those 15 minutes ain't no joke.

Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland man who helped Amanda Berry escape from her captor and free her fellow captives, is already a full-fledged Thing On The Internet, primarily owing to a live local television news interview. During that interview, Ramsey proved himself a fantastic storyteller, and he kept it extra-extra-real.

"Margaret Groening died peacefully in her sleep on April 22, 2013, in Portland."

That paid obituary, which ran Monday in The Oregonian, marked the life of the woman who served as the inspiration for one of the best-known characters on television and arguably pop culture: the beehive-coiffed Marge Simpson.

Groening was 94.

Updated at 9:29 pm ET --- Former South Carolina Republican governor Mark Sanford easily beat Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch to regain the House seat he once held.

For Sanford, the victory in the strongly Republican 1st Congressional District was sure to be widely viewed as a personal redemption. Sanford left the governor's mansion in 2009 after an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman who is now his fiancee led to the breakup of his marriage.

Since 1993, the United States has seen a drop in the rate of homicides and other violence involving guns, according to two new studies released Tuesday. Using government data, analysts saw a steep drop for violence in the 1990s, they saw more modest drops in crime rates since 2000.

The auditorium at James Blake High School in Silver Spring, Md., is packed when Cy Maramangalam strolls onstage, sporting jeans and a shaved head.

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The discovery of the three women in Cleveland has overshadowed another story here in Washington about an 83-year-old woman found dead yesterday near Reagan National Airport. Victoria Kong suffered short term memory loss. She arrived at the airport Friday on a flight, but went missing after wandering off on foot. The stories, taken together, paint a broad and varied picture of what it means to be missing in America and the two cases sent us looking at the latest missing persons numbers.

President Obama says the United States and South Korea are determined to stand firm against North Korean threats and that the days of Pyongyang manufacturing a crisis to get international concessions "are over."

In a joint news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday, Obama said the two leaders "very much share the view that we are going to maintain a strong deterrent" against North Korea.

"We're not going to reward provocative behavior, but we remain open to the prospect of North Korea taking a peaceful path," he said.

The four women who survived a fire that erupted in a moving limousine Saturday did so by squeezing through a narrow partition window between the passenger cabin and the driver's area. As we reported Monday, the tragedy claimed the lives of five other women on a bridge over San Francisco Bay.

There's controversy about what to do with the body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. But what happened to the bodies of other similar figures in recent history like Adam Lanza or the Virginia Tech shooter? Host Michel Martin finds out.

Charles Ramsey helped save three missing women from a home in Cleveland, Ohio. But he said something interesting about why he answered their call for help. Host Michel Martin explores what Ramsey's comments may say about race in America.