NPR News

Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, whose iconic Commodore 64 was one of the best-selling computers of all time, has died. He was 83.

Jack Tramiel, the founder of Commodore International, whose iconic Commodore 64 was one of the best-selling computers of all time, has died. He was 83.

Forbes reports that Tramiel was born in Poland in 1928 to a Jewish family, and sent to Auschwitz during World War II. He and father were then sent to the Ahlem labor camp near Hanover from where he was rescued in 1945. He came to the U.S. in 1947 where he started Commodore as a typewriter business.

The second of three winning tickets in last month's $656 million record-breaking Mega Millions lottery has been turned in, officials at the Maryland Lottery just announced.

Four years ago, then-candidate Barack Obama famously sank a 3-point shot when he visited U.S. troops in Kuwait who had gathered in a gym to hear from the Democratic senator. The video was a cable TV favorite for a day or two.

Today, the first hoopster's shot wasn't dropping, as Politico reports.

One-third of people over age 50 aren't getting screened for colon cancer, despite a big push from the medical establishment. But what if all those people needed was to be given a choice?

People whose doctors let them choose between a colonoscopy or a fecal occult blood test were much more likely to get screened than were people whose doctors told them to go get a colonoscopy.

It's never been easy to make a living as a musician. But there was always a dream: to become a star on the strength of your talent and your music. The Internet is a rude sandman, however, and today that dream is a lot more convoluted.

No longer can a would-be rock star follow the once-accepted checklist: (1) sign with a big label, (2) get a hit, (3) buy mansions and cars. The number of ways a musician can make money is now varied. The question, for many musicians still trying to make a go of it in the industry, is whether those many sources can add up to something sustainable.

By now it's hardly news that the U.S. spends more than every other industrialized country on health care. But a new study suggests that at least when it comes to cancer care, Americans may actually be getting decent value.

As Portugal tries to dig out of its financial mess, it's confronted with a sobering fact: Fewer than 30 percent of adult Portuguese have graduated from high school. Not college. High school.

And in a country that's been hit so hard by the economic crisis, even those with an education are struggling.

Ana Dias and Ruth Cardozo, both 27, are lifelong friends who now work together at a shoe store in Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Cardozo dropped out of high school 10 years ago to take this job.

M. Ward's music inspires a sense of wonder — it recalls many sounds from a different time and place.

"I get most of my inspiration from older records and older production styles," Ward says, "and that ends up rearing its head in the records that I make. One of the great things about music is that it has the capability of time travel — you smell a certain smell in the room and it takes you back to your childhood. I feel like music is able to do that, and it happens to me all the time."

The New York Yankees may be the most polarizing team in the U.S. In a new collection, Damn Yankees: Twenty-Four Major League Writers on the World's Most Loved (and Hated) Team, writers share the stories behind their passions.

On one side of a wall inside the Truman Medical Center cafeteria in Kansas City, Missouri, the menu features low-calorie, low-fat and low-sodium meals. On the other side of the wall is a McDonald's, featuring hamburgers and french fries.

There is some evidence to suggest that citizens monitoring their communities can reduce crime. But the Trayvon Martin shooting focused new attention on neighborhood watch programs. Many neighborhoods have them, but the Martin case has brought questions about what they can and can't do to the fore.

In 2011, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction banning Los Angeles police from confiscating and destroying the belongings of homeless people on Skid Row. In the Los Angeles Times, Carol Schatz argues that the ruling, intended to protect the homeless, puts them in greater danger.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

During the course of his career, singer-songwriter Adam Cohen says he has twisted himself into creating commercially successful music — but not this record, not this song. "What Other Guy," from his third album Like A Man, didn't seem likely to generate mainstream popularity. And yet it did, more than any other song he has ever recorded.

The son of iconic singer Leonard Cohen, Adam Cohen says his latest record is a celebration and demonstration of his father's influence on his music.

Idan Raichel is one of Israel's top-selling pop musicians. Vieux Farka Toure is a virtuoso guitarist from Mali. The two met by chance in a German airport, and when Toure played a concert in Tel Aviv, Raichel sat in. He enjoyed himself so much that he invited Toure and two other musicians to come to a studio the next day and jam. The music they created is now an album called The Tel Aviv Session.

The special prosecutor investigating the Feb. 26 shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin announced this morning she will not be taking the case to a grand jury this week.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. On tomorrow's program, we'll talk with a woman who's vying to lead one of the world's most important financial institutions. Nigerian finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has put forward her name to become the next chief of the World Bank. She'll tell us why and why she feels she should prevail over the U.S.-nominated candidate. That's next time on TELL ME MORE.

Updated at 2:23 pm: Rick Santorum's daughter, Bella, is expected to be released from the hospital by Monday evening given the improvement in her condition, said Alice Stewart, spokeswoman for the former senator's campaign.

Assuming her release goes as planned and Santorum, who took a break from his campaign to tend to his daughter and for the Easter holiday, returns to the trail, that would clear the way for the Romney campaign to resume its negative advertising against Santorum.

---

A rocket that North Korea says is slated to put the country's first-ever satellite into orbit has been moved to a launchpad for possible blastoff as early as this week, amid reports that the secretive regime is also planning a fresh nuclear test.

The Unha-3 rocket is sitting astride a gantry at the Sohae Satellite Station at Tongchang-ri, along the country's northwest coast, according to the BBC. Pyongyang says it could launch sometime between April 12-16.

Remembrances of legendary CBS newsman and long-time 60 Minutes co-host Mike Wallace were still pouring in after his death over the weekend. Wallace died at age 93.

Jeff Fager, the chairman of CBS News and 60 Minutes executive producer, said of the famously hard-nosed interviewer that "He loved the fact that if he showed up for an interview, it made people nervous."

Former first lady Nancy Reagan called him "an old school journalist and one of the most astute people I've met."