1:57pm

Tue May 21, 2013
Agriculture

Want To Grow Hemp? State Officials Say To Wait

Credit Martin Abegglen / Flickr/Creative Commons
Hemp and marijuana are hard to differentiate with the naked eye, but the two plants differ in their chemical makeup. Hemp is mostly used for its fiber and oil to make fabrics and lotions.

Aspiring hemp growers are stuck in a tricky gray area these days. While voters in some states, like Colorado, have given the go-ahead to growing and processing the plant, a blanket ban still exists at the federal level. Not to mention the lack of rules for growing and processing hemp.

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Frannie Kelley is an Editor for NPR Music.

In this position, Kelley is responsible for editing, producing and reporting NPR Music's coverage of hip-hop, R&B and the ways the music industry affects the music we hear, on the radio and online. She is co-editor of NPR's music news blog, The Record, and co-host of NPR's rap stream Microphone Check, with Ali Shaheed Muhammad.

Since joining NPR in September of 2007, Kelley has worked on a variety of projects including running a series on hip-hop in 1993 and overseeing a project on women musicians. She also ran another series on the end of the decade in music and web-produced the Arts Desk's series on vocalists, called 50 Great Voices. Most recently, her piece on Why You Should Listen to Odd Future was selected to be a part of the Best Music Writing 2012 Anthology.

Prior to joining NPR, Kelley worked in book publishing at Grove/Atlantic in a variety of positions from 2004 to 2007. She has a B.A. in Music Criticism from New York University.

1:23pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Record

Kanye West Stands Alone

Credit Dana Edelson / NBC/NBCU Photo Bank

What happened over the weekend? At 8:34 on Friday night, Kanye West tweeted. He said he'd be premiering a song in a half hour and we'd have to do what he said to hear it – we'd have to go to a particular address and stand outside with other people and watch a video projected onto the side of a building. Of course, the first video of the video was up within minutes, so most people didn't have to do any such thing.

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1:16pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Salt

Vertical 'Pinkhouses:' The Future Of Urban Farming?

Originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 2:01 pm

The idea of vertical farming is all the rage right now. Architects and engineers have come up with spectacular concepts for lofty buildings that could function as urban food centers of the future.

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1:13pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Two-Way

Court Backs Withholding 'Potent' Images Of Bin Laden's Body

Credit Getty Images

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in favor of the government's decision to keep photos and video of the May 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden a secret, rebuffing a conservative watchdog group that had sought their release.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington accepted a White House assertion that releasing the images, including death photos of bin Laden, could spark violence and risk the lives of Americans abroad.

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1:01pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Two-Way

Overturned: Former Guatemalan Dictator's Genocide Conviction

Credit Moises Castillo / AP

A federal court in Guatemala has thrown out the genocide conviction of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, which had been called a breakthrough in the region's human rights.

NPR's Carrie Kahn reports that "all trial evidence and testimony as of April 19th, the date a trial judge was removed from the case, must be re-entered."

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12:57pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Two-Way

Oklahoma's GOP Senators Find Themselves In Tornado Aid Bind

Originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 1:55 pm

Even as President Obama was declaring that tornado-devastated Oklahoma would get "everything it needs right away," the state's most vociferous critic of federal emergency aid vowed that he, too, would push for assistance "without delay."

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12:43pm

Tue May 21, 2013
The Two-Way

Dolphins Find 19th Century Navy Torpedo In Pacific Ocean

A rare piece of America's military history was located this spring, when dolphins from the Navy's Marine Mammal Program located an unusual artifact: a torpedo from the 19th century. Discovered during a training exercise in the ocean near San Diego, the torpedo will eventually make its way to a museum.

The bottlenose dolphins were honing their ability to find underwater mines when the discovery was made. The torpedo did not have a warhead, Navy officials say.

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12:39pm

Tue May 21, 2013
Parallels

China Builds Museums ... But Will The Visitors Come?

Originally published on Tue May 21, 2013 2:20 pm

Shanghai did something last fall that few other cities on the planet could have even considered. It opened two massive art museums right across the river from one another on the same day.

The grand openings put an exclamation point on China's staggering museum building boom. In recent years, about 100 museums have opened annually here, peaking at nearly 400 in 2011, according to the Chinese Society of Museums.

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11:53am

Tue May 21, 2013
Shots - Health News

A Mother And Daughter Confront Their Breast Cancer Risk

Credit Courtesy of Regina Brett

Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie has been in the headlines, by her own choice for a change.

Genetic testing showed she was at high risk for breast cancer, so she decided to have a double mastectomy to improve her odds. She revealed her choice, and the thinking behind it, in a recent op-ed in The New York Times.

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