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Women make up less than 20 percent of those serving in Congress, but more than half the population. There are many reasons for this, but one simple answer comes back again and again. It's about recruiting.

When Monica Youngblood got the call, she thought it was a joke. The call came from a man she had worked to help get elected.

"It's your time," she says he told her. "We need people like you in Santa Fe. We need a voice like yours who's live here, who's been through what you've been through. I think you need to really consider it."

Sports

For Women, Being A Jock May Also Signal Political Ambition

Fewer people died in Massachusetts after the state required people to have health insurance, according to researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health.

In each of the first four years of the state law, 320 fewer Massachusetts men and women died than would have been expected. That's one life extended for every 830 newly insured residents.

Massachusetts passed its mandatory universal health coverage law in 2006 under then-Gov. Mitt Romney. The hope was that when people have health insurance, they would be more likely to get preventive care, go to the doctor when they become ill, and live longer.

Now there's evidence of that link, according to a study published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine. In the first four years of universal health insurance, the state's death rate dropped 2.9 percent when compared to similar counties outside Massachusetts that did not expand health coverage.

White residents are living longer, but the biggest improvement in life expectancy came for blacks, Asians and Latinos, whose death rates dropped 4.6 percent. Barbara Ferrer, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission, says the study builds on prior research showing that health coverage is reducing income and racial disparities in Massachusetts. She's hopeful the state is on a path to eliminate health disparities altogether.

Shots - Health News

Lessons For The Obamacare Rollout, Courtesy Of Massachusetts

A number of federal agencies are grappling with rules around drones as the popularity of the unmanned aircraft is rising. The National Park Service recently banned their use in Yosemite, and the Federal Aviation Administration is under orders from Congress to safely integrate unmanned aircraft into U.S. airspace by September 2015.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta tells NPR's Robert Siegel that in writing the rules, the administration is most concerned with the safety of the national airspace.

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One of the many casualties of Syria's civil war is the country's architectural heritage. We've told you about damage to the historic 11th century Umayyad mosque and the ancient city of Palmyra. Now comes a story from The Associated Press about damage to the Crac des Chevaliers, a castle that held off a siege by the Muslim warrior Saladin during the Crusades.

The castle, like the two other sites, is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It lies about 25 miles from Homs, a flashpoint city in the 3-year-old conflict between Syria's rebels and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Two years ago, Assad's forces began a blockade of the Sunni-dominated village of Hosn, which they believed was aiding the rebels. The rebels, the government said, were linked to al-Qaida and were targeting neighboring Christian villages. Government troops began bombarding Hosn, prompting the village's 9,000 people to take refuge inside the nearby Crac des Chevaliers. Those inside the citadel included rebel fighters who lobbed mortars outside its walls at the nearby villages.

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