President Obama canceled NASA’s plan to replace the space shuttle in favor of a more modest program, and then Congress slashed the funding for that. So, for the first time in 50 years America is not the leader in spaceflight.

The 7,000 layoffs at the Kennedy Space Center triggered 7,000 more in the surrounding Florida community. Unemployment has been close to 11 percent. [CBS News]

Cupertino high school student Angela Zhang may know the cure for cancer: As a freshman, she started reading doctoral-level papers on biological engineering. By her sophomore year in high school, she managed to convince Stanford University to let her use their laboratories, and by junior year, she began doing her own research that led her to develop a recipe that boggles even her chemistry teacher. Zhang’s recipe won her a $100,000 award at a national science competition sponsored by Siemens. Her method of curing cancer by aiming an infrared light at mutated cells killed cancer in mice; it will be a few more years before it can be determined if the method works in humans. Nevertheless, Zhang’s three years of research is considered a breakthrough. [CBS News]
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Cupertino high school student Angela Zhang may know the cure for cancer: As a freshman, she started reading doctoral-level papers on biological engineering. By her sophomore year in high school, she managed to convince Stanford University to let her use their laboratories, and by junior year, she began doing her own research that led her to develop a recipe that boggles even her chemistry teacher.

Zhang’s recipe won her a $100,000 award at a national science competition sponsored by Siemens.

Her method of curing cancer by aiming an infrared light at mutated cells killed cancer in mice; it will be a few more years before it can be determined if the method works in humans. Nevertheless, Zhang’s three years of research is considered a breakthrough. [CBS News]

Every single day we get together and ask, ‘What are the most important things that happened in the world today? How can we cover them? How can we tell the story and give it a unique insight?’ Those are the standards we use. We do not sit around asking ourselves, ‘Is this going to appeal to a 19-year-old?’ or, ‘Is that going to appeal to a woman?’ We are covering the news.
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, quoted in the Montreal Gazette.