From NPR News in Washington, I'm Lakshmi Singh.

 

　　The US supreme court is narrowly upholding a Maryland law saying police can take DNA from people they arrested for serious crimes. The 5:4 ruling deal is a blow to privacy rights advocates. While as NPR's Nina Totenberg reports it's a significant win for law enforcement.

 

　　Law enforcement will be ecstatic about this ruling. It affirms a practice that has been growing in many states and had been in legal question with lots of courts reaching different conclusions. The question being, can you take the DNA of some body who's been arrested but not yet convicted, and then use that DNA,  feed it into a database, and see if it, and if it comes up as matching a previous other crime, that, use that DNA to lead to another prosecutions.

 

　　NPR's Nina Totenberg.

 

　　New researches out on breast cancer and specifically on how African American women are affected. It says black women appeared to be more likely then had been thought to have genetic flaws that increase their risk for breast cancer. The new data was released today during a meeting of the Americn society of clinical and colleging in Chicago. NPR's Rob Stein has details.

 

　　Researchers analyse the gene of more than 200 breast cancer patients in Chicago. They found that 1/5 of the women had genetic flaws linked to breast cancer including the well known BRCA 1 and 2 genes. The defects were especially common among those who had negress form of breast cancer known as triple negative breast cancer.  The findings could help find why black women tend to be more likely to get breast cancer when they are younger and it could help explain why they tend to be less likely to survive after being diagnosed. Scientists say the findings suggest black women should be encouraged more to undergo straining for breast cancer genes. Rob Stein NPR NEws.

 

　　President Obama says it's time to bring the issue of mental illness out of the shadows. To that aim the White House's hosting the conference on mental health, part of a broder response to the New Town school shootings five months ago. That also includes proposals for tighter gun controls. One of the nation's most prominent supporters of gun control, New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg has died at the age of 89. His colleagues say the democrat left his mark over the spend of nearly 30 years in the senate as a driving force behind laws that bar people from smoking on US airline flights or from drinking alcohol if they are under 21. Here senate majority leader Harry Reid.

 

　　Few people in history pay these social tributes much to our nation, and to United States' senate, as Frank Lautenberg.

 

　　Lautenberg was the senate's last surviving veteran of World War II, he also co-founded the payroll services company, automatic data processing, or ADP.

 

　　You are listening to NPR NEws.

 

　　Secretary of state John Kerry says the goal of a still unscheduled peace conference on Syria is to prevent the total collapse of the country. He calls it a difficult process. NPR's Michele Kelemen has more.

 

　　Kerry had been hoping to bring together Syria's warring factions last month then diplomats are still struggling to get everyone to the table in Geneva to set up a transnational government for Syria. The secretary says the US is coming to this late.

 

　　We are trying to prevent the sectarian violence from dragging Syria down into a complete and total implosion, while it has broken up into enclaves and institutions of the state have been destroyed.

 

　　Kerry says he thinks Russia's foreign minister is still committed to holding the conference, but add said Moscow's arms deals with Bashar al-Assad regime are putting this as a risk. Michele Kelemen NPR News Washington.

 

　　Nine Afghan children and two international service members were killed today in a suicide bombing in eastern Afghanistan. Authority say the attacker targeted a US delegation.

 

　　The waters have been rising in one southeastern German city to levels not seen in the area in 70 years. The down pours at inundated much of central Europe in recent days are causing rivers to overflow their banks and flood into per cell leaving much of city impossible by foot. Floods in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and the Chech Republic have claimed at least eight lives. Authority say nine people are still missing.

 

　　Before the closing bell, Dow was up 138 points at 15,254; NASDAQ up nine and the S&P 500 also up nine points.

 

　　I'm Lakshmi Singh, NPR News.