San Antonio nonprofit Merced Housing Texas has received a $200,000 grant to help low-income families in its housing developments and throughout the city.

For the next two years the group will receive $25,000 every quarter to help facilitate its programs. Merced operates nearly 1,700 units for low income people across the state in Corpus Christi, Fort Worth, San Antonio and other cities but are based here.

Within 10 days of Miguel Diaz-Canel's big promotion to vice president of Cuba in February, he was already being tapped as a stand-in for reticent, 81-year-old President Raul Castro. It was Diaz-Canel, not Raul or Fidel Castro, who gave Cuba's first public condolences when the communist government lost its best friend and benefactor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In his first press conference since his horrific leg injury, Kevin Ware focused on his team.

"I'll be OK," the 20-year-old University of Louisville basketball player said.

Ware said that he's a quiet guy and that he's thankful for all the support he's received. But his focus always returned to the NCCA basketball tournament.

There are two significant developments in the search for the Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony to tell you about today: Uganda announced it was suspending its search for Kony, but at the same time, the United States announced it was offering a $5 million reward for information that leads to his capture.

At an industrial park where they build appliances and other products for companies from South Korea, 55,000 North Koreans typically earn about $62 each a month, a North Korea expert tells NPR.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. The president talks guns in Colorado. Hillary Clinton supporters talk 2016. And in New York City, six pols busted for talking turkey. It's Wednesday and time for a...

DAN HALLORAN: It's all about how much...

CONAN: ...edition of the political junkie.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)

PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN: There you go again.

VICE PRESIDENT WALTER MONDALE: When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: Where's the beef?

Researchers from University College London followed thousands of people over the age of 52 for seven to eight years to assess the effect of loneliness and isolation. Isolation, not loneliness, may actually shorten people's lives regardless of health or income.