KVNF Mountain Grown Community Radio

After 12 years, a federal court in Germany has settled an epic Easter battle: It ruled Lindt & Spruengli, the Swiss chocolatier, could not trademark its gold-foil wrapped easter bunny chocolates.

Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports:

Easter brings with it many predictable foods: chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, ham, and hard-boiled eggs. But some Italians use the season to feature a surprisingly sweet vegetable dish on their tables.

It's called torta co'bischeri agli spinaci. Francine Segan calls it "Tuscany's sweet spinach pie." Segan is a food historian and author of Dolci: Italy's Sweets. She shared a recipe for the pie for All Things Considered's Found Recipe series.

A mortar shell hit part of Damascus University in Syria's capital on Thursday, killing at least 10 students and wounding a number of others, according to the official Syrian news agency, which says the shell fell on an outdoor café in the architecture department.

NPR's Susannah George is following the attack from neighboring Lebanon: "State TV footage shows puddles of blood in a colorful school cafeteria, and an awning is torn above where the mortar allegedly landed."

The billboard in Washington, D.C.'s Metro stopped me in my tracks on the way to work: "Love Your Patooty."

Standing in front of mothers whose children have died in shootings, President Obama said Thursday at the White House that if the nation fails to toughen its gun laws, "shame on us."

"Shame on us if we've forgotten" the 20 children and 6 educators killed three months ago at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and all the others who have died in gun-related violence before and since then, Obama added.

Deadly microbes like salmonella and E. coli can lurk on the surface of spinach, lettuce and other fresh foods. But many more benign microbes also flourish there, living lives of quiet obscurity, much like the tiny Whos in Dr. Seuss' Whoville. Until now.

Scientists at the University of Colorado have taken what may be the first broad inventory of the microbes that live on strawberries, lettuce, tomatoes and eight other popular fresh foods.

It turns out the invisible communities living on our food vary greatly, depending on the type and whether it's conventional or organic.

Retirement ads are everywhere these days. The Villages lures retirees to come live, love and golf in Florida. USAA offers financial counsel to retiring military personnel.

Residents forced from their homes on Puget Sound's scenic Whidbey Island in Washington State are waiting for a green light from geologists and engineers after a large landslide knocked a house off its foundation and threatened to damage several others.

The landslide on the island, about 50 miles north of Seattle, measured about a quarter-mile wide and a half-mile deep, according to NBC News.

Hundreds rallied outside the Supreme Court this week as the justices heard arguments in two gay marriage cases. Host Michel Martin speaks to Bishop Harry Jackson, who opposes same-sex marriage and spoke at the Marriage March, a rally held in Washington, D.C.

Now he can catch up with his bills. Pedro Quezada of New Jersey claimed the fourth-largest jackpot in the history of the Powerball multistate lottery on Tuesday. Instead of taking the $338 million dollar prize in installments, he opted for a one-time lump sum payment of $211 million, which is the third-largest single cash prize the lottery has ever awarded.