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The government of Kazakhstan says it's cooperating with U.S. officials in the investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, a day after two men from the Central Asian country were charged in connection with the blasts that killed three people and wounded more than 250.

"As we have repeatedly stressed, Kazakhstan strongly condemns any form of terrorism," a statement from Kazakhstan's Foreign Ministry office read, according to The Boston Globe. "The Kazakhstan side is cooperating with the U.S. law enforcement bodies in their investigation."

The Globe writes:

"The brief statement also outlined the charges against Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, who were both charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. They allegedly disposed of a backpack and a laptop that they found in the dorm room of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused of planning and executing the Boston bombings.

'We would like to emphasize that our citizens did not receive charges of involvement in the organization of Boston marathon bombings,' the Kazakhstan foreign minister's office said. 'They were charged with destroying evidence.'

The foreign minister's office also said that Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were receiving 'the necessary consular assistance' but did not elaborate on what that assistance might entail.

'Their guilt has not been proven and the investigation is ongoing,' the statement read."

Jasmine Tierra is a singer whose voice is crossing boundaries of language and culture. She's African-American, and grew up singing gospel music. But that's not where she's making her mark now. She has become a YouTube sensation by singing in Hmong. That's the language of an Asian ethnic group rooted in certain regions of China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

Tierra has been singing and writing songs in Hmong for years, winning fans and sometimes besting native speakers at Hmong festivals around the country. She even performed at the First Annual Hmong Music Awards.

In an interview with Tell Me More host Michel Martin, Tierra says the Hmong language is musical, all by itself. "It sounds like a melody," she says.

Tierra first learned about Hmong culture when her family moved to Minnesota. In 2006, she entered Arlington High School in St. Paul, which had a large Hmong population. Her hunger to sing in the language began after she befriended fellow student Panyia Kong. "She's a really excellent singer as well. She's Hmong. And she gave me some of her albums – her Christian Hmong albums," says Tierra. "It started off with me just listening to the CDs...and then she would start singing one of the songs and I would join in with my broken Hmong."

Home grocery delivery sounds like a frill for people too lazy to schlep to the store. But having food delivered can be more environmentally friendly than driving to the store, researchers say.

Having groceries delivered can cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least half, compared to driving to the store, according to a new study. That's because the delivery truck offers the equivalent of a "shared ride" for the food.

"It's like a bus for groceries," says Anne Goodchild, an assistant professor of engineering at the University of Washington, and a coauthor of the study. "Overwhelmingly, it's more efficient to be sharing a vehicle, even if it's a little larger."

Goodchild studies logistics and freight transportation. She also gets her groceries delivered. "As a working mother, it's another trip I don't have to make while my kids are awake," she says. But, she admits, "I felt sort of lazy and indulgent to be ordering my groceries this way."

Buy combining her knowledge of freight transport and data on commuter habits, Goodchild and her colleagues were able to calculate just how efficient it is to put the groceries on the "bus," using neighborhoods in Seattle and randomly choosing households as potential customers. Pretty darned efficient, it turns out.

Home food delivery trucks, they found, produce 20 to 75 percent less carbon dioxide than having the same households drive to the store. The variation is based on how close people live to the store, the number of people in the neighborhood getting food delivered, and the efficiency of the truck's route.

Penny Pritzker, one of the nation's richest people and a "longtime political supporter and heavyweight fundraiser," as The Chicago Tribune writes, is President Obama's choice to be his next secretary of commerce.

The president announced the news this hour at the White House. He also said that one of his economic advisers, Michael Froman, is his choice to be the next U.S. trade representative.

As USA Today notes, Pritzker's nomination could rile some of Obama's other supporters:

"Pritzker, who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Obama's two presidential campaigns, is on the board of Hyatt Hotels Corp. Her personal fortune is estimated at $1.85 billion, and she is listed among the 300 wealthiest Americans by Forbes magazine. ... Hyatt and the hospitality workers union have been involved in a long contract battle, and workers have protested the company's treatment of them. The AFL-CIO and other organizations have called for a global boycott of Hyatt properties. ...

"Senators may also grill Pritzker over the 2001 collapse of family-owned Superior Bank, which specialized in sub-prime lending, and federal lawsuits against her family over Caribbean tax shelters."

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