These Are A Few Of Our Favorite Teachers Plus 19 More Stories

Your NPR stories for February 5, 2015

Daily Briefing A look at the day's top stories News These Are A Few Of Our Favorite Teachers In our 50 Great Teachers project, we're telling stories of great teachers. Here are some from our own lives. Read this story U.S. And NATO Seek New Ways To Help Secure Ukraine's Border "Clearly what we see is that conditions in eastern Ukraine have to change," NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove tells NPR's Renee Montagne. Read this story Stuck In Traffic? It's Likely To Be Worse In 30 Years, Report Says Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx talks about the challenges facing America's transportation system, and why he says the country needs to invest much more in it. Read this story Al-Qaida in Yemen Says U.S. Drone Strike Killed Senior Cleric A prominent presence in the Al-Qaida in Yemen organization, Sheik Harith al-Nadhari was among those who praised the recent attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Read this story FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg To Step Down The head of the Food and Drug Administration has been on the job for six years and presided over such controversial decisions as relaxing age restrictions on the Plan B contraceptive. Read this story more news stories Most Popular 'Better Call Saul,' The Prequel To 'Breaking Bad,' Is As Good As The First The new AMC show is about public defender Jimmy McGill, who adopts a sleazy new persona as Saul Goodman. The show has the same tight plots, rich characters and delicious twists as its parent series. Read this story Hospitals Fail To Protect Nursing Staff From Becoming Patients Nursing employees suffer 35,000 back and other injuries nearly every year. But many career-ending injuries could be prevented if hospitals brought in new technology and taught "safe patient handling." Read this story Scientists Want To Trick The Gut Into Burning Fat Without Food Researchers say they've discovered a way to jump-start fat-burning by switching on the digestion process without the presence of food. So far, it has only been tested in mice. Read this story New Clues To Mysterious Kidney Disease Afflicting Sugar Cane Workers What's causing the ailment that has struck 20,000 farmhands in Nicaragua and El Salvador? Pesticides? Alcoholism? Rat pee spreading an infection? A study from Boston University provides some answers. Read this story Does Binge-Watching Make Us Depressed? Good Question Recent headlines make it sound as if watching just a few episodes at night can make us depressed and lonely. OK, more than a few. But the science on binge-watching is just getting started. Read this story more most popular stories Arts & Life Reply Of The Tiger Tony the Tiger thinks everything is "grrrreat!" as long as it begins with the letters "g-r." Show your grrreatness in this game, where all answers aregrrrroovy things that Tony would enjoy. Read this story Groovy Movie In this game, guess two rhyming movie titles from descriptions of their combined plots. It's really just an excuse for us to talk about White Men Can't Jump and Forrest Gump in the same sentence. Read this story This Old House All of the answers in this round contain the name of a room, piece of furniture or item that is commonly found in a house. So don't forget your loofa for the bridal shower. Read this story Bureaucracy In Action "Acting Associate Administrator for Administration for the Maritime Administration" is a fake government job, right? Well, try fitting these titles on a business card, because some are actually real. Read this story Six Of Some, Half-Dozen Of The Other A word that has no repeating letters is an "isogram," which itself is an isogram. Confused? If you're a Francophiles or a lycanthrope, you can guess the twelve-letter isograms we're looking for. Read this story more arts & life stories Music Eric Reed Plays Coleman Hawkins For the 110th birthday anniversary of a pioneering tenor saxophonist, a hard-swinging modern-day pianist designed a special tribute set in Jazz at Lincoln Center. Read this story Lennie Tristano: Cool Reputation, Hot Jazz Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a newly released 1951 live recording by the pianist's sextet at Chicago's Blue Note club. Read this story The Dodos, 'Competition' In the band's latest video, for the song "Competition," singer and guitarist Meric Long reveals his passion for modern dance. Read this story Ray Davies On World Cafe, Part 2 Hear the second part of a wide-ranging interview with The Kinks' lead singer. Read this story I'm Rick James: 15 Hours Of The Funk Supernova's Best Songs Hear a mix of songs made by Motown's most successful post-Detroit star — an authentic live wire and an ultrasavvy professional who's misremembered and underappreciated. Read this story more music stories