Marine Olivesi

After the earthquake, injured Haitians flooded the hospital. Now, some of them are cured, but like the 700,000 other homeless Haitians, they have nowhere to go. So they turn to their doctors for help, adding to the overstretched workload of the medical staff.

On Monday, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush visited Haiti. All this week, Takeaway producer Anna Sale is also in the country, but at a rural hospital 75 miles away from Port-au-Prince. Today, she reports on the journey of 17-year-old Joseph Maxon, who spent his day navigating through Haiti's bureaucracy in search of a birth certificate.

• CONGRESS TAKEOUT: Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich answers listeners' questions on how the health care reform will affect them.
• SPORTS TAKEOUT:  The NCAA women's basketball tournament heads to round two with the favorite (U-Conn) still in the lead; but, is an upset on the way? We turn to Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin.

Many of you have called in to share your views on the health care reform. From jubilant to skeptic to very unhappy, your responses embrace the whole spectrum of opinions.

Last night the House voted, 219-212, to approve the Senate's version of health care reform, clearing the way for legislation to proceed to the president's desk. The House also approved a set of "fixes" to the Senate bill; Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has assured the House leadership that more than 51 Senators will pass the same fixes using the Senate's reconciliation rules.

Democrats unveiled the full version of the health care bill yesterday, which they hope to pass as soon as Sunday.

As congressmen and analysts dissect it, Takeaway Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich takes us through what is new in this version that might change your mind about supporting, or opposing, health care reform.

• ENVIRONMENT TAKEOUT: It's flood season in North Dakota. Prairie Public Broadcasting reporter Todd McDonald gives us the latest on the flood preparations in Fargo and tells us why some people are still not moving away from the town's most exposed area.
• MONEY TAKEOUT: Former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan will be at the Brookings Institution today to present his most detailed report on the roots of the financial meltdown, 48-page paper titled, "The Crisis." New York Times reporter Louise Story discusses Greenspan's limited admission of failure and his new argument on what really caused the housing bubble.

Hundreds of sexual abuse cases against Catholic priests have been surfacing in Ireland over the past weeks and the Pope said he will address the crisis in a repentance letter tomorrow.

But his efforts could be undermined by a scandal of his own. Last week, a senior church official said when the Pope was Archdiocese of Munich, he made “serious mistakes” in handling one specific priest accused of molesting boys back in the early 1980s.

 

Two big drug-related stories have made headlines this week. The first was the killing last Saturday of two American government employees in Ciudad Juarez. The violence is believed to be related to an ongoing turf-war between rival drug cartels in Mexico. The other event could provide a good story line for Ocean's 14. One of the biggest pharmaceutical heists in history took place in Connecticut last weekend when thieves stole $75 million worth of drugs from an Eli Lilly warehouse. But they weren't recreational painkillers, but rather mostly antidepressants.

The battle over health care reform has come to define the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency, and some say he has bet his future on passing the bill. This week we may finally see the last chapter in the year long battle as House Democrats are counting their supporters for a potential vote on Saturday. It's been a long journey and as we wait for the big day, we're taking a look back at the turning points that got us here.

• WASHINGTON TAKEOUT: After a year of debates over health care policy, lawmakers are now debating the procedure for passing the bill. Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich, has the latest news on the bill's journey through Congress.
• CENSUS TAKEOUT: Tim Olson, assistant division chief with the U.S. Census Bureau, explains how the Census Bureau is counting same-sex couples, whether married or not.

Despite the Internet's genesis here in the U.S., Americans' per capita access to broadband has lagged. In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth in the world for citizens' access online, but dropped to 15th in 2009, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Federal Communication Commission will today unveil its first plan for national broadband access. Goal number one: to bring super-fast Internet access to the 100 million homes that don't currently have access to broadband — and make that access cheaper for everyone along the way.

Across America, dozens of towns have seen their populations shrink in the past few years. For cities like Detroit or Cleveland, the demographic decline started well before the economic downturn. For others, like Las Vegas, it’s a brand-new phenomenon. Local governments are trying to adjust to the new reality, and some of them are choosing to downsize. The Kansas City Board of Education voted last Wednesday to shut down nearly half its schools due to dwindling enrollment. And last week, Detroit's mayor announced that the city will demolish thousands of its vacant homes.

The preliminary results of Sunday's general elections in Iraq show a very tight race between current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the secular coalition led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

The post-electoral confusion deepened with both sides throwing charges of fraud.

A new demographic study from the University of New Hampshire finds that the demographic makeup of the U.S. is changing most rapidly among babies and young children, with 2010 on track...

Millions of American men are tested every year for prostate cancer, but the blood test used for screening isn’t completely reliable. Now, the American Cancer Society says there's a chance the screenings can do more harm than good. What are men at risk of prostate cancer supposed to do?

The largest-ever survey of American teachers was released yesterday by the Gates Foundation and the Scholastic publishing company. Forty thousand teachers answered questions on how to fix schools and what they need to do a better job. We find out what the biggest needs of teachers are, according to the survey.

February wasn’t a bad month for everyone in the auto industry. In the midst of recalls and Congressional hearings, Toyota’s sales dropped 9 percent, while Ford's sales were up a whopping 43 percent in the same month, which makes Ford the country’s top-selling automaker. We continue our conversation about the state of the auto industry and the health of some of its major players. 

In Chile, the death toll has risen above 700 victims three days after the 8.8 magnitude earthquake shook the country. This is one of the strongest earthquakes recorded in history, and one of the deadliest earthquakes in Chile since the Valdivia quake of 1960.

Saturday's earthquake struck Chile with a force that was 500 times more powerful than the quake that hit Haiti last month, and set off a tsunami that destroyed villages up the coast. Millions of Chileans were displaced, and there are reports of gas, food and water shortages as people scramble to meet their needs.