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The race for the White House is not over. But with 6 weeks to go, Mitt Romney still trails in key battleground states he must win if he is to defeat President Obama.

A government report finds that efforts to limit human exposure to toxins aren't helping kids as much as they are helping adults. The report, issued today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that children between the ages of 6-11 are sponging up the chemicals found in cigarette smoke and soft plastic toys. It also found that Mexican-Americans have abnormal levels of the pesticide DDT in their bodies and that pregnant women carry more mercury than expected. NPR's John Nielsen reports that federal officials say they are concerned but not alarmed by the findings.

More than 20 million workers earn less than $9 an hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At those levels, many people have trouble making a living. In Corbin, Ky., NPR's Noah Adams talks with 24-year-old Marshall Cox, who earns $6.25 an hour as a fast-food worker but dreams of pursuing a career in drafting.

In the Horn of Africa, a drought is killing livestock across a wide swath of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. The United Nations estimates that more than 6 million people in the region are at risk of running out of food and water as a result of the drought if aid doesn't arrive soon.

The Supreme Court rules that one-time stripper and Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith can pursue part of her late husband's oil fortune. Justices gave new legal life to Smith's bid to collect millions of dollars from the estate of J. Howard Marshall II. His estate has been estimated at as much as $1.6 billion.

Joe Rosenthal, who took the iconic photo of six U.S. servicemen raising the flag over Iwo Jima in World War II, has died in California. He was 94. Rosenthal got his picture at the end of a bloody five-week battle that left 6,800 American troops dead.

Fisk University plans to sell an iconic Georgia O'Keeffe painting donated by the artist in 1949. The sale, designed to raise money for the cash-strapped Nashville university, could break an O'Keeffe sale record of $6.3 million. It also may violate the terms of O'Keeffe's gift, which specified the modern art collection of her late husband Alfred Stieglitz not be broken up.

A manuscript in Ludwig van Beethoven's own hand was discovered in a Philadelphia seminary in July. It is expected to fetch $1.7 to $2.6 million at auction next month.

We remember historian Stephen Ambrose who died Sunday at the age of 66. A college professor, Ambrose became a best-selling author late in life with his book D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. He wrote several military history volumes including Citizen Soldiers. He was consultant for the film Saving Private Ryan and his book Band of Brothers was the basis of the 2001 HBO mini-series. Ambrose also wrote Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark exploration to the West. This interview first aired Aug. 15, 2001.

NPR's Jack Speer reports on another disappointing jobs report. The U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday that business payrolls rose by 21,000 in February -- much weaker than the 125,000 new jobs economists were expecting. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.6 percent, but it was the number of workers who gave up on finding a job that kept the unemployment rate from going up.