Kalamazoo, Curious Capitals and Incarceration

One Uber rider tells NPR what it was like to ride in the car of the Michigan shooting suspect. And in other news, some Maryland prisoners sentenced to life are being set free.

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"You aren't the shooter, are you?" That's what one Uber rider jokingly asked his driver in Kalamazoo, Mich., this past weekend. The driver didn't take it too well. Turns out we may know why: He allegedly was. "Every trip to the outhouse was a game of Russian roulette." Perhaps even scarier still, toilet paper used to have splinters in it. Cue the heroes in Green Bay, Wis., who quite literally saved our behinds -- and earned the city the (admittedly weird) nickname, Toilet Paper Capital of the World. Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey Remember their names -- for we remember the name of the surgeon who experimented on them. If Dr. James Marion Sims is the "father of modern gynecology," these women, then, were its unconsenting mothers. Empathy Sometimes, it lives in the littlest things -- including cookies. And before you chow down on your next plate of chow mein, remember: You may owe those noodles -- or, at least, their popularity in the U.S. -- to a little-remembered loophole in early 20th century immigration law : a legal mouthful, sure, but one that paved the way for literal mouthfuls. Meet the modern "Rip Van Winkles" of Maryland How would you feel if you were released after decades behind bars, finally awakened to a long-unfamiliar freedom? Now,  how would you feel if you were one of these felons' original victims?

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