National News from NPR

Many European parents, and some American ones, too, have long figured if they let their kids drink alcohol at home, they'd be less likely to go hog wild with their friends. But recent studies of teen drinking behavior don't bear that out.

That's unwelcome news in places like France, where these scientific developments are running head long into a culture that loves its wine.

Pakistan is a country where rumors are always flowing. So when President Asif Ali Zardari was rushed to a hospital in the United Arab Emirates on Dec. 6, it set off all sorts of speculation.

His aides are doing their best to quell talk that he might step down. They say Zardari has been undergoing treatment and tests for a pre-existing heart ailment, and is recovering well in Dubai.

But that hasn't stopped politicians from considering what Pakistan's political landscape might look like without him.

Millions of Americans wake up each morning without a job, even though they desperately want to work. It's one of the depressing legacies of the financial crisis and Great Recession.

NPR and the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a poll of people who had been unemployed or with an insufficient level of work for more than a year. The results document the financial, emotional and physical effects of long-term unemployment and underemployment.

The country has been trying to recover from the Great Recession for three years. But the U.S. job market remains weak, leaving roughly five million workers unemployed for a year or more.

The Kaiser Family Foundation teamed with NPR to conduct a survey, seeking to describe the experiences of those long-term unemployed workers. Here are some highlights of the survey findings.

The long-term unemployed tended to be low-wage workers.

One late January night in 1966, President Johnson went to the Capitol to deliver the annual State of the Union address.

Johnson was at the peak of his power that night, and during the hourlong speech, he talked about his agenda for the year: Vietnam, social programs and expanding the war on poverty. But right in the middle, he offered up an idea that seemed to come out of nowhere when he proposed to change the term for a congressman from two years to four, concurrent with presidential terms.

Robert Griffin III is the first Baylor player to ever win the Heisman. In a year full of scandals in college sports, the win for Griffin — a dean's list student and son of two retired Army sergeants — delivers a much-needed shot in the arm to the public image of the NCAA, says Dave Zirin, sports editor of The Nation.

Jerry Robinson, creator of Batman's iconic enemy the Joker, died this week at 89. Guy Raz has this appreciation.

The vast, untapped natural gas reserves in Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale are the subject of much debate. Scientists who are trying to shed light on the safety of drilling are facing a host of obstacles, including lack of funding and data. Susan Phillips Scientists who are trying to shed light on the safety of drilling are facing a host of obstacles.