NPR 2012-03-25

 Republican voters in Louisiana weigh in on the party's field of presidential hopefuls today. Hopes are high in Rick Santorum's campaign after Mitt 1 Romney crushed opponents in Illinois. NPR's Don Gonyea is in Lafayette, Louisiana for the vote. He reports that despite very good weather, so far voter turnout has been low. Speaking to voters there, Gonyea has learned that even though their candidate is behind in delegates, Santorum’s supporters believe that he can run and win against Barack Obama in November.

 
They say Romney has not wrapped up the nomination 2 yet. So they are voting for Santorum out of their conviction, and person after person has told me that, that Santorum is the guy who is better equipped to take on Barack Obama - President Obama in the fall. That's what I’m hearing over and over. They don't quite want to hear the delegates mess just yet. 
 
NPR's Don Gonyea reporting from Lafayette, Louisiana.
 
A few hours from now, President Obama will land in Seoul, South Korea for an international summit on nuclear security. NPR's David Schaper has more.
 
The Seoul Nuclear Security Summit is focused on taking steps to better protect nuclear materials and facilities and preventing them from falling to the wrong hands. Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says he doubts the summit will produce any kind of historic new doctrine 3. The goal, he says, is to get about a dozen countries to make specific promises about how they will reduce nuclear danger.
 
“Though Obama is going to a summit, a half way around the world where he is really sort of playing small ball in the way. But it's an absolutely crucial small ball for the safety of the planet.”
 
O'Hanlon says it’s also no accident that the summit is being held in South Korea, even though North Korea's nuclear program is not specifically on the summit agenda. David Schaper, NPR News.
 
The former CEO of the commodities broker 4 MF Global is denying that he directed the misuse 5 of client money before the firm filed for bankruptcy 6 last fall. From member station WNYC, Ilya Marritz reports Jon Corzine's statements contradict a newly surfaced email from one of his former employees.
 
The email was obtained by a House committee which is called the staffer Edith O’Brien to testify next week. A snippet from this message seems to say that Jon Corzine personally directed the withdrawal 7 of 200 million dollars from the accounts of MF Global customers in the firm's final days. Securities laws require that customer money be held separately from other accounts, but more than a billion dollars of MF Global clients’ cash is still considered missing. Corzine, through an attorney, says he never gave any instruction to misuse customer funds. For NPR News, I'm Ilya Marritz in New York.
 
The people of Mexico are giving Pope Benedict an emotional welcome. He says he is praying for all in need.
 
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Across the nation, thousands continue to rally to the cause of Trayvon Martin, the Sanford, Florida teenager who died in a scuffle with a neighborhood watch volunteer. That volunteer, George Zimmerman, has acknowledged firing his gun, and his lawyer says it was in self-defense. The black teenager was not armed, and the Justice Department is investigating. Meanwhile, Indiana researchers say they have found that if the individual is holding a gun, in some cases he may have a higher expectation that another person is too. Sean Bueter of member station WBOI in Fort Wayne, Indiana explains.
 
The study asked subjects to look at multiple photos of people holding everyday objects and identify whether or not there was a gun in the picture. They were asked to do this once while holding a neutral object and again while holding a toy gun. It turns out respondents holding a gun had a significantly higher tendency to perceive guns in the test photos, even if no weapon was present. Purdue psychology 8 professor Jessica Witt says the results are disconcerting. She says most of the time, human perception works just fine.
 
“But then when it doesn't work the way it's supposed to in a case of misperception of the environment, then some horrible things can happen.”
 
The research will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. For NPR News, I'm Sean Bueter in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
 
A large fishing vessel 9 has been spotted 10 adrift in the Pacific off the coast of British Columbia. Authorities say it's from Japan and likely swept away by the tsunami 11 that devastated 12 Japan last year. It's believed no one is on board, and there are fears it could pose a navigational hazard.
 
I'm Louise Schiavone, NPR News, Washington.