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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

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KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Kelly McEvers, with news of a sad panda in China. Si Jia got depressed after her only companion moved to another zoo. She's now a happy panda. The zoo where she lives built her a mini-amusement park. And now the staff at the Yunnan Safari Park in Southwest China has given her a plasma TV, where she can watch other pandas at play. Si Jia was one of three giant pandas rescued after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

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Tensions remain very high this morning in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russia demonstrators stormed the city hall in the city of Donetsk. And there are now reports this morning of several Ukrainian armored personnel carriers on the move in some cities flying Russian flags. To try and sort out what's going on, we have NPR's Ari Shapiro on the line. He is in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. Ari, good morning.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Hi, David.

People in the newly annexed territory of Crimea are trying to figure out how to deal with their new status as part of Russia, rather than Ukraine. Tatars were vocal in their opposition to the Russian takeover of Crimea. That's because they remember their history of maltreatment under the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

Donald Rumsfeld has made complaining to the IRS a bit of a tradition. In this year's letter to the IRS he writes: I have absolutely no idea whether our tax returns and our tax payments are accurate.

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The Washington Post is celebrating a pair of Pulitzer Prizes this week. One is for a series on Americans who rely on food stamps. The other, a Public Service medal for stories based on the documents from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.

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The city has reached a tentative agreement with retired police officers and firefighters to preserve their pensions. Pensions of other city retirees would take a 4.5 percent hit.

A plant growth chamber is headed to the International Space Station. It's called Veggie and it sort of looks like a pillow that you can see through, all lit up in pink, with lettuce inside.

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Good morning. I'm Kelly McEvers.

The top spot on the American Library Association's annual list of most challenged books goes to "The Adventures of Captain Underpants," for the second year in a row. The series got the most formal complaints in a list compiled by librarians across the country. The graphic children's novels feature a superhero in his skivvies fighting villains like Dr. Diaper, which, believe it or not, earned the books more complaints than the very adult book "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Russia and Ukraine were the major contributors to the Soviet army. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow and Kiev continued to cooperate. The recent crisis transformed friend into foe.

It's the deadline to file your taxes. And if you're getting a money back, retailers want it. They're offering sales and promotions to separate you from your hard-earned refund.

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NPR's business news begins with another shakeup at GM.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: General Motors announced yesterday that two of its senior executives have left the company. The departures of the senior vice president for communications and for human resources follow in the heels of strong criticism of the company's handling of February's recall of nearly 2.6 million cars.

Kelly McEvers talks to Leslie Jamison, author of the new essay collection, The Empathy Exams: Essays. The book takes the writer on a quest to figure out how others feel empathy.

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All right. If I say Florida and Spring Break, you might be conjuring images of beaches, cocktails, theme parks. Well, some of our reporters have been sending suggestions for more off-the-beaten-path destinations and NPR's Greg Allen takes us to Florida and the state's fresh waters springs.