State and National News

When the Obama administration proposed new restrictions on teens working on farms last year, labor leaders and child welfare advocates cheered.

Throughout the Republican primary campaign, opponents of Mitt Romney have handed President Obama lots of potential general-election fodder in their attacks on the front-runner.

And now that Romney is the presumptive GOP nominee, he's dipping back four years to the 2008 Democratic primary battle for some ammunition of his own.

The legal defense team for George Zimmerman, the man accused of second-degree murder in the shooting of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, has created a website, Facebook page and Twitter account to protest his interests.

Although he did not directly address the whereabouts of blind human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, President Obama said when the United States talks to China, it always brings up "the issue of human rights."

"We think China will be stronger if it opens up and liberalizes its own system," the president said.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

For weeks now, war has been simmering along the world's newest border between Sudan and South Sudan. Both countries blame the other as the aggressor in a conflict that includes disputes about contested territory and about access to oil reserves. Before an American sponsored peace agreement, what's now South Sudan fought a long war for independence that killed an estimated one and a half million people. Now less than a year after separation, the two states stand on the brink of full scale war.

As Syria continues its violent crackdown, Hoover Institution senior fellow Fouad Ajami argues that the U.S. has forsaken Syria and its people and provided the regime with a lifeline. In the Wall Street Journal, Ajami writes that "everyone is waiting on Washington's green light and its leadership."

Since Arizona passed SB 1070 in 2010, five other states signed similar legislation into law: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana. Some of those laws are on hold pending court rulings, but lawmakers in say they've already seen successes, as well as unforeseen consequences.