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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

In the U.S., most Latino children begin school without some of the basic skills necessary to do well in the classroom. Some never catch up. But as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, a recent study found that many of these kids also have unique strengths that could help them make up the difference.

Rarely do we consider the trucks, trains and tankers that transport our food around our cities — and around the world. It's not until an accident happens, and the food inside these vessels comes pouring out, that we remember all this food in motion around us, and how damaging it can be when it spills.

The truth is, a lot of food is extremely sticky, bulky — and sometimes, flammable. And apparently, the people who move it around are just as accident prone as the rest of us.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has decided to lift a ban that prohibited women from serving in combat, a congressional source tells NPR's Tom Bowman. The move opens up thousands of front-line positions.

Panetta is expected to announce the decision along with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Thursday.

Citing "senior defense officials," the AP adds:

Controversial experiments on bird flu could resume within weeks because leading influenza researchers around the world have finally called a halt to an unusual moratorium that has lasted more than a year.

The voluntary pause in the research started back in January 2012. Scientists had genetically altered the bird flu virus H5N1, changing it in ways that allowed it to spread through the coughs and sneezes of ferrets — the lab stand-in for people.

The family of former NFL linebacker Junior Seau has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NFL, the Associated Press is reporting.

According to the wire service, Seau's family accuses the NFL of "acts or omissions" that "hid the dangers of repetitive blows to the head."

Researchers in London claim that listening to classical music makes for unsafe driving — in fact, that it caused more erratic driving than hip-hop, heavy metal or not listening to music at all.

A decade after news of the sex abuse scandal in the Boston archdiocese of the Catholic Church broke, reports of abuse continue to emerge. The number of priests in the U.S. is in rapid decline, raising questions about who still chooses the job and how the work has changed after high-profile abuse scandals.

Nearly two years after the crisis in Syria began, the humanitarian situation in the country remains dire. Shinjiro Murata, head of the Doctors Without Borders mission in northern Syria and NPR foreign correspondent Deborah Amos, discuss the efforts to address growing medical needs.

Blue states and red states are moving further apart.

That's one of the clear lessons from the annual "State of the States" report, which the Pew Center on the States is rolling out in a string of assessments this week.