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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm David Greene.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

A news item last weekend reminded us that we live in a largely peaceful country right next door to a country at war with itself. In northern Mexico on Sunday, authorities found the bodies of 49 people. They were left on a highway outside Monterrey about 75 miles from Texas. They are described as victims of the Zetas crime syndicate. And the dumping of bodies like this is not unusual in Mexico.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And let's turn our attention now north of the border to Canada. New austerity programs are creating the kind of unrest we most often associate with Europe these days. In the Province of Quebec, a plan to hike university tuitions by 75 percent over the next five years has led to weeks of violent street rallies, often involving tens of thousands of students and protestors.

North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann reports.

The fallout from banking giant JPMorgan Chase's $2 billion — and counting — loss has made its way into the presidential campaign. The president and presumptive GOP challenger Mitt Romney have very different views about the regulation of Wall Street, in particular the Dodd-Frank financial systems overhaul law.

Housing prices are going through the roof in Canada. The real estate market there is one of the hottest in the developed world. In Toronto, prices increased 10 percent in March alone. The average detached house in the city costs more than $600,000.

That has economists and the government worried that Canada is experiencing a housing bubble that's about to burst.

Several states, including Kansas and New Jersey, are debating so-called "wrongful birth" laws that would prevent parents from suing a doctor who fails to warn them about fetal problems.

Abortion rights activists say the laws give doctors the right to withhold information so women don't have abortions.

In Suffern, N.Y., Sharon and Steven Hoffman's son, Jake, was born with Tay-Sachs, a genetic disease that mainly affects Jewish families and is usually fatal by age 4 or 5.

"There's no treatment. There's no cure. There's nothing," Sharon says.