Two high-profile attacks on hotel maids are leading to a change in security at two Manhattan hotels: The Wall Street Journal reports that according to union officials, the Pierre Hotel and the Sofitel New York will equip their room attendants with panic buttons in case they are attacked.

The Louisville Orchestra’s contract with its musicians expired at midnight Wednesday. That means the players are not being paid, they do not have insurance and do not have any guarantee they’ll have jobs when the next season starts. There’s hope for a new contract, but amid contentious negotiations and ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, that hope is diminishing.

Six Kentucky counties have been chosen at random for mandatory, post-primary election audits. Attorney General Jack Conway conducted the drawing, and the counties chosen at random to be audited are Wolfe, Boyd, Muhlenberg, Nelson, Estill and Clark. Pendleton County was drawn before Clark, but disqualified, because it was audited in the previous election. Conway says investigators will now be dispatched to the six counties drawn.

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell knows which side he's on in the "war on coal." Speaking before the Kentucky Coal Association in Lexington Wednesday, McConnell said the Environmental Protection Agency has defied logic and operated outside the scope of its authority with a permitting process that leaves coal operators in limbo.

At the small southern college where I taught in the 1970s, one of the grad students had flown a chopper in Vietnam. Instead of living on campus, he rented a cottage in the woods. He slept there alone, with a Colt .45 under his pillow.

He played me tapes of fire-fights in which friends had died. Out of the jabber and roar of bad recording, he teased monologues that were poisoned with the essence of terror and despair.

Here's a measure of how difficult a marketing job congressional Republicans have ahead of them on the Medicare issue - nearly six out of ten Americans oppose their proposal, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research poll.

Fifty eight percent of those surveyed opposed the Republican Medicare proposal to privatize the program while only 35 percent supported it, CNN said. The plan is contained in the House Republicans' proposed budget for fiscal year 2012.

If you're not a romantic, look away now. But we just couldn't resist passing along this video of a pretty elaborate marriage proposal that's making its way across YouTube and making many coo a long, "Aweeee."

28-year-old Jeff Gurwin had a mural painted in New York's East Village. His girlfriend Caitlin Fitzsimons, 27, was on her way to dinner with Gurwin when she saw, "Will you marry me Caitlin?" written in wooden block letters. In the video you can see her run across the street, and deliver a happy yes:

The Republican takeover of the U.S. House and statehouses across the country has helped launch a new chapter in the nation's long-running debate over abortion.

And as NPR's Julie Rovner reports on Wednesday's All Things Considered, there's a move afoot to legally redefine when personhood itself begins — to the time when a sperm fertilizes an egg. A change like that would have broad legal ramifications.

Language Advisory: This is a live concert recording, and may not contain language suitable for all audiences.

In Syria, the brutal death of a 13-year-old boy has spurred further demonstrations as the uprising there enters a third month.

Syrian protesters now shout the boy's name, Hamza al-Khateeb. He has become a symbol of the victims of the government's crackdown on dissent.

The Syrian government has promised to investigate his death. A video of his mutilated body was so gruesome that YouTube administrators blocked it, but they reinstated the images on Wednesday after a petition from human rights organizations.