All Things Considered

The House has passed one of the most far-reaching abortion bills in decades. But it's unlikely to ever become law.

By a mostly party-line vote Tuesday of 228-196, lawmakers passed the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act," which would ban nearly all abortions starting 20 weeks after fertilization.

Cities are defined by their skylines — while Paris is composed mostly of low-rise apartment buildings, New York is a city of tall office towers. But London is a city in transition. On Tuesday, Boris Johnson, the mayor of the British capital, attends a "topping out" ceremony for one of London's latest skyscrapers in a city where tall buildings cause a lot of controversy.

Until recently, London has been a low-rise city.
 Even now, a 12-story building is considered rather tall.
 But a spate of new skyscrapers is raising questions about the kind of city London should be.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Legislative battles are being fought around the country over whether or not to let home-schooled students play on public high school teams.

Roughly half of U.S. states have passed laws making them eligible to play on the teams. Advocates have dubbed them "Tim Tebow bills," after the NFL quarterback who was home-schooled when he played on a high school team.

But an attempt by Indiana to find a middle ground may not have solved the problem in that state.

Somewhere In The Middle

Robert Siegel and Melissa Block read emails from listeners about Mozart's violin and the price of potatoes.

Christine Porter is hooked on the MyFitnessPal app. In October, after deciding to lose 50 pounds, Porter started typing in everything she eats, drinks and any exercise she gets.

"This is my main page here," says Porter. "It's telling me I have about 1,200 calories remaining for the day. When I want to record something I just click the 'add to diary' button. I'm on it all day either through my phone or through the computer."

She says she's lost 42 pounds in nine months.

In the past decade, Mexico's tech industry has flourished, growing three times faster than the global average. Most of that growth has been fueled by demand from the United States. But as Mexico's startups strive to make it in foreign markets, they say they need more engineers and ways to finance their growth.

Editor's Note: Many of you noted that the price for a 10-pound bag of potatoes cited in the lawsuit seems ridiculously high. So we look into the matter further — you can read what we found in this follow-up post.

High-tech spying with satellites. Intimidation. Price fixing.

The human voice appears to trigger pleasure circuits in the brains of typical kids, but not children with autism, a Stanford University team reports. The finding could explain why many children with autism seem indifferent to spoken words.

Once upon a time, it was MySpace. (Huh. Turns out you can still link to it.) Then Facebook happened. And Twitter. And beyond those two dominant social-media platforms, there are a host of other, newer options for staying in touch and letting the digital universe get a look at your life. And for certain kinds of sharing, some of those other options make more sense to tech-savvy teens than the Big Two do.

Note: As part of NPR's series on the summer of 1963, reporter Cory Turner headed to Jackson, Miss. to take a look at how folks are teaching the Civil Rights movement to kids who weren't a part of it — and making the lessons stick.

Much has changed in the past 50 years, since the height of the Civil Rights movement. But how do you teach the Civil Rights to kids who haven't ever experienced it? In Jackson, Miss., Fannie Lou Hamer Institute's Summer Youth Workshop tackles that question.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel. Netflix announced a deal today with Dreamworks Animation. The cartoon powerhouse says it will produce 300 hours of original content for the video streaming service. As NPR's Neda Ulaby reports, the deal illustrates some important trends in the medium formerly known as television.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: The new Netflix shows can be based on Dreamworks' enormous library of wildly popular characters.

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In Southern California, the power grid is always a hot topic. It's a part of the country that is all too familiar with the rolling blackouts. And now there is more reason for concern about the region's capacity to generate electricity. The San Onofre nuclear power plant is shutting down for good, thanks to worn-out parts. It's been off-line for more than a year after a pipe was found leaking radioactive steam. At its peak, San Onofre provided power for 1.4 million homes.