FUQUAY-VARINA An eye-opening lesson has unfolded for a group of students who set about mapping where to buy healthful food in their community.

KOURE, Niger A crisp African dawn is breaking overhead, and Zibo Mounkaila is on the back of a pickup truck bounding across a sparse landscape of rocky orange soil.

BEIJING A Chinese scholar persecuted during the Cultural Revolution for smuggling a rare collection of mushrooms out of China before World War II was honored Saturday when the collection was returned more than 70 years later.

DURHAM In a famous 1993 speech, cancer-stricken former N.C. State basketball coach Jimmy Valvano launched his research foundation with a plea for money that he said might not save his own life, but might save his children's lives.

As Congress weighs options for cutting some of the $2.2 trillion Americans spend on doctors, surgeries, treatments and drugs, some solutions may be as simple as a phone call.

LOS ANGELES A Seattle team has collected a $900,000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space - an idea spurred by science fiction novels.

BARCELONA, Spain After two years of tough U.N. climate talks often pitting the world's rich against the poor, negotiators said Friday a new global agreement now rides on industrial nations pledging profound emissions cuts next month in Copenhagen.

LONDON In Britain, there are no long lines of people seeking swine flu vaccine. Doctor's offices aren't swamped with desperate calls. And there are no cries of injustice that the vaccine is going to wealthy corporations or healthy people who don't really need it.

ATLANTA Only about a third of adults who have tried to get a swine flu vaccine have been able to get it, according to a new national poll released Friday.

RALEIGH The largest delivery yet of H1N1 vaccine to Wake County will enable area health clinics to run five vaccination programs starting Monday.

RALEIGH The national president of the NAACP said Thursday that too many North Carolina residents lack health insurance for people on Capitol Hill to delay passage of a health care overhaul bill until 2010.

DURHAM At Duke University, a school that likes to tout its cutting-edge research, a sex toy study being conducted by a behavioral economist and student health workers has roused criticism.