NPR News And Stories From WUNC

Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, discusses the role of social conservatives in the GOP politics. Incoming congressman Rick Nolan talks about his return to the House after more than thirty years. NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin recaps the week in politics.

Police officials in New York City tell the Daily News that they can't remember the last time this happened:

"Not a single person was reported shot, stabbed or slashed" in the Big Apple on Monday.

"Nice way to start the week," Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne told the newspaper.

Following the French, Spain announced it would back the Palestinian bid to attain non-member observer state status at the United Nations.

Bloomberg reports that Spanish Foreign Minister Jose-Manuel Garcia-Margallo made announcement in a speech to the country's national parliament in Madrid.

Citing a "lack of business integrity," the Environmental Protection Agency announced it was temporarily suspending the oil giant BP from entering into new contracts with the federal government.

In a press release, the EPA said BP demonstrated the lack of integrity during the Deepwater Horizon "blowout, explosion, oil spill and response." This kind of suspension, the EPA explained, is "standard practice when a responsibility question is raised by action in a criminal case."

After a two-month hiatus, the mysterious coronavirus that killed one man and hospitalized another is back on the scene. This time it has infected members of the same family.

The new cases raise the known total to six, including two deaths.

Scientist are trying to figure out if the involvement of a family says something new about the virus.

Mexico's President-elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, is promising to work closely with President Obama. Pena Nieto was in Washington this week ahead of his inauguration on Saturday. Host Michel Martin speaks with Alfredo Corchado, Mexico bureau chief for The Dallas Morning News, and Stephen Johnson from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The 2012 presidential contenders will break bread at the White House on Thursday.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney "will have a private lunch at the White House with President Obama in the Private Dining Room," the White House says in a statement sent to reporters. "It will be the first opportunity they have had to visit since the election. There will be no press coverage of the meeting."

It's a startling trend: Many women with cancer in one breast are choosing to have their healthy breast removed, too.

But a study being presented later this week says more than three-quarters of women who opt for double mastectomies are not getting any benefit because their risk of cancer developing in the healthy breast is no greater than in women without cancer.

Sales of new homes edged down 0.3 percent in October from September, but were a healthy 17.2 percent above the pace of October 2011, the Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development report.