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Crisis In The Housing Market
9:01 pm
Wed January 18, 2012

Silicon Valley Homebuilder Finds A Profitable Niche

The U.S. housing market may be singing the blues, but there are pockets where home sales are rising. James Witt, a homebuilder in California's Silicon Valley is surviving and thriving thanks to his luck, location, and knowledge of the local market.

Witt is a tall lanky man whose graying long hair suggests an actor in a Western movie. He's standing on his 3-acre property in Palo Alto, which includes an updated old farmhouse and a yard with a pair of donkeys. One, named Perry, has an interesting pedigree.

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Opinion
9:01 pm
Wed January 18, 2012

Love On Hold: For Army Wife, Missed Connections

Siobhan Fallon is the author of the short-story collection You Know When the Men Are Gone.

The spouses of deployed soldiers have a desperate relationship with the phone.

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Music Interviews
9:01 pm
Wed January 18, 2012

The Pre-Game Songs That Send Matt Barnes Soaring

Credit Melissa Majchrzak / NBAE/Getty Images
Matt Barnes goes up for the dunk at a January game against the Utah Jazz.

Language Advisory: The songs linked to in this article contain lyrics that some listeners may find offensive.

As many people head back to the gym this month, we're doing our part to help with The Ultimate NPR Workout Mix.

We're asking people what songs make them move, and it turns out music is just as important for motivating professional athletes as it is for the rest of us. We caught up with Los Angeles Lakers forward Matt Barnes after a recent practice --he says that before games, it's all about one rapper.

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Shots - Health Blog
3:30 pm
Wed January 18, 2012

Many Older Women May Not Need Frequent Bone Scans

Credit NPR
NPR journalist Gisele Grayson got her hip bone scanned a couple of years ago and discovered she has osteopenia.

The bone-thinning disease called osteoporosis is a big problem for women past menopause. It causes painful spine fractures and broken hips that plunge many women into a final downward spiral.

So it seemed to make sense to monitor older women's bones on a regular basis to see when they need to start taking drugs that prevent bone loss and fractures. Since Medicare will pay for a bone-density scan every two years, that's what many women have been getting.

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The Two-Way
3:13 pm
Wed January 18, 2012

Tarahumaras, Known For Running Great Distances, Are Facing A Food Crisis

This week, reports have started to filter out of the remote northern mountains of Mexico that the Tarahumara indians are facing hunger. The indians were immortalized by the book Born To Run, in which writer Christopher McDougall paints a portrait of a proud tribe that thrives on long distance running — a tribe that with little in their stomachs and even less on their feet, puts to shame even the best American ultra-marathoners.

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