All Things Considered

Audie Cornish and Melissa Block talk to NPR correspondents covering the New Hampshire primary. NPR's Don Gonyea is covering the campaign of former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. NPR's Robert Smith is covering the campaign of Texas Rep. Ron Paul. NPR's Tovia Smith is covering the campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman. And NPR's Andrea Seabrook is covering the campaign of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

The Army has spent billions of dollars in the past 15 years on an ambitious program to develop a universal radio. It was called the Joint Tactical Radio System, or "JTRS." But now the Army has scrapped most of that program. Melissa Block talks to military writer David Axe about its failure.

A defiant Bashar Assad addressed the nation for the first time in seven months Tuesday, making clear he has no intention of halting the violent crackdown on anti-government protesters and renegade soldiers. Assad lashed out at the Arab League, which has deployed monitors in Syria to oversee implementation of a peace plan. Two of those monitors were reported lightly wounded Tuesday in an attack near a northwestern city.

A federal court has ruled that Oklahoma cannot implement a state ban on Islamic Sharia law. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling blocking Oklahoma's Sharia ban.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

More than half of states had forced sterilization programs at one time, but few were as aggressive as North Carolina's. Some 7,600 men, women and children were sterilized by that state's eugenics board up to the mid 1970s. Sterilization was seen as a way to control welfare costs and improve the caliber of the population. Well, today, a task force in North Carolina took a step toward becoming the only state to offer compensation to eugenics victims.

From member station WFAE, Julie Rose has the story.