Morning Edition

Pizza chefs from around the world are gathered to compete in events like: largest dough stretch, fastest pizza-box folding and freestyle acrobatic dough-tossing.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And I'm Renee Montagne.

The American soldier who allegedly shot and killed 16 men, women and children in two Afghan villages was from an Army base outside Tacoma, Washington. The Army/Air Force installation, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, is one of the biggest in the military.

It's also, as NPR's Martin Kaste reports, one of the most troubled.

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U.S. officials have not released the name of the U.S. soldier accused of killing some 16 Afghan civilians in southern Afghanistan over the weekend. The shootings come as anti-Americanism already is boiling over in Afghanistan after U.S. troops burned Qurans last month.

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Here's one thing that many people mean when they say Washington is broken. They may mean that politicians from different parties seem unable or totally unwilling to compromise, and many voters hate that. And yet many voters also hate it if politicians from their own party should compromise with the other side. That could be considered giving in. NPR's science correspondent Shankar Vedantam joins us regularly to talk about social science research, and he's found some that relates to this political problem. Hi, Shankar.

As China's political season gets underway, pictures of delegates to the National People's Congress wearing expensive suits and carrying designer handbags have gone viral. It's estimated the richest 70 Chinese legislators have more wealth than the entire U.S. Congress.

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NPR's business news starts with trade moves against China.

What is remarkable is that those who bought bonds will get a tiny rate of return. Renee Montagne talks to David Wessel, economics editor of The Wall Street Journal, about what the results mean, who's buying Treasuries and how the borrowed funds are being spent.

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And today's last word in business is 50-50.

Those are the odds you'll ever see your lost cell phone again. That's according to a study by a security firm, the people behind the Norton AntiVirus software. The company set up an experiment where they purposely lost smartphones in public areas, you know, elevators, shopping centers, airports, places you may have left your phone at some point.

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We're following news this morning of more killings in the Syrian city of Homs. That's the city where rebel neighborhoods came under artillery fire for weeks and where two Western journalists were killed. Rebels later retreated, but residents and activists say pro-government militias have massacred dozens of civilians, mainly women and children. NPR's Kelly McEvers is following this story from Beirut.

And, Kelly, what evidence you have?

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When an American soldier reportedly walked through two villages in southern Afghanistan and methodically killed 16 civilians, including children, it caused an uproar from Kabul to Washington, D.C. Now, let's get a view from where the killings happened - Kandahar. I first met Ehsan Ullah two years ago when I reported on a Canadian-funded girls' school that he runs in that city.