A new contract for the city's hotel workers includes higher wages, health care benefits and pensions. And at a time when labor negotiations often involve drawn out and sometimes bitter fights, the contract was agreed upon early.

With it being a general election year and the president counting on getting enough of the women's vote to win re-election, the phone call takes on a bigger meaning. Comforting someone like Fluke who was targeted by Limbaugh for siding with Obama's contraception policy was the kind of symbolic act that could pay dividends for the president come November.

Major League Baseball will add two more wild-card teams to the playoffs starting this fall. It's the first playoff expansion since 1995, and it will create a wild card play-in game between the two teams with the best records that didn't win their divisions. For the first time, a third-place team could win the World Series.

Kids surprised researchers at Columbia University by being just as happy with some treats even if they knew they had vegetables. The cookies were another matter, though.

The Old Farmer's Almanac, like many other forecasters, was way off the mark when it came to this year's winter weather. Meteorologists say it has a dubious overall track record, but millions of people still consult the quirky, centuries-old almanac, which uses a secret formula to come up with its yearlong weather predictions.

On the political horizon — ten states, four candidates and one Super Tuesday. Can we expect the GOP delegate puzzle to gain clarity following Super Tuesday or will it remain muddled? NPR's Ron Elving and Neal Carruth dissect the momentum each candidate has going into next week's primaries.

Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney appeared locked in a tie for Ohio's Republicans, with the former senator's lead in Ohio shrinking from what it was before the recent Michigan primary which Romney won.

Lead poisoning in children can be reduced by cleaning up pregnant women's homes, according to a new study. That would be better than waiting until children are exposed to identify the problem, experts say. But the cleanups are expensive, and money is tight.

Frank Calabrese Jr. has written a memoir about bringing down his father's murderous Chicago crime family. In Operation Family Secrets, Frank details how he helped the FBI convict his father of several murders by wearing a hidden wire and taping his father's conversations.