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The nation's obesity epidemic appears to have hit a plateau, according to the latest federal data released Tuesday.

Obesity soared in the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s, doubling among adults and tripling among children. That raised widespread alarm and debate about the causes and possible solutions. Obesity can increase the risk for diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other serious health problems.

In an interview with the CBC, yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper had some harsh words for the United States and its side of the Keystone XL pipeline debate.

"I don't object to foreigners expressing their opinion," Harper told the CBC. "But I don't want them to be able to hijack the process so that we don't make a decision that's timely or in the interests of Canadians."

He has probably paid an effective federal income tax rate of about 15 percent in recent years, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told reporters in South Carolina a short time ago.

If patients and doctors both have easy access to the notes the doctor takes during their office visits, will it change their behavior?

That's a question that an experiment called OpenNotes aims to answer by letting patients of more than 100 primary care doctors in three states see the notes online.

In December, researchers reported the results of surveys taken before the project started in 2010 in which patients and physicians were asked about their attitudes toward making such information available.

Morning Edition's staff noticed a story from over the long holiday weekend that's just too much of a "no-way!" not to pass along.

Dramatic audio has emerged of an irate Italian Coast Guard officer ordering the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia to "get back on board!" as the stricken vessel lay crippled off the coast of Tuscany on Friday night.

As NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, in the telephone call Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco shouts as he accuses Costa Concordia Capt. Francesco Schettino of abandoning his ship. Schettino was apparently sitting in a row boat at the time.

Good morning.

Our early headlines:

-- Wednesday's Web 'Blackout' By Wikipedia, Others: Right Way To Protest?

-- Hopes Are Fading For Missing In Italian Cruise Ship Disaster.

Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact.com and Washington bureau chief for The St. Petersburg Times, and PolitiFact.com's Angie Drobnic Holan wrote about how candidates at the Myrtle Beach, S.C. debate rated on PolitiFact's Truth-O-Meter for PolitiFact.com and It's All Politics:

It's been nearly a year since Google executive Wael Ghonim became one of the faces of the Arab Spring as his online organizing efforts and his arrest helped draw people and attention to the demands by many Egyptians for reform — a movement that led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

Divers and other rescue personnel are still trying to reach areas of the cruise ship Costa Concordia that haven't yet been explored in a bid to see if any of the 29 people who remain unaccounted for after Friday's crash off the Italian coast of Tuscany might be alive.

But as the BBC reports, hopes are fading. As of this hour, six people are known to have died. More than 4,200 passengers and crew were on board when it struck rocks, took on water and listed on to its starboard side.

There could not have been more apt an epitaph. The once-promising campaign of former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman came to an end within hours of his being endorsed by The Columbia State, South Carolina's largest and most influential newspaper, within days of that state's Republican primary.

The woman who wrote the State's endorsing editorial said she felt as if she'd been wooed and won and abandoned by her newly betrothed. Indeed, over the course of his campaign, Huntsman left more than a few journalists feeling jilted.

The English-language version of the online encyclopedia will shut down for 24 hours Wednesday to protest an anti-piracy bill in Congress. Visitors to Wikipedia will be encouraged to call Congress. The site's co-founder Jimmy Wales tweeted he hopes visitors "will melt phone systems in Washington."

Alexis Rodriguez was treated for pneumonia, and received a bill for nearly $45 million. Grateful as he was for the care, the unemployed doorman complained. The Daily News reports the billing firm printed the invoice number instead of the price: $300.

The brewer of Yuengling based in Pottsville, Pa., is now the largest American beermaker. Other popular beers like Bud are now owned by foreign companies. Yuengling shipments grew last year to about 2.5 million barrels, edging out the maker of Samuel Adams.

The Republican presidential candidates gathered last night In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, for a debate. Myrtle Beach is also the site for the first convention of the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition.

Under heavy pressure from his rivals, front-runner Mitt Romney defended his record as a venture capitalist. He also insisted he bears no responsibility for attack ads aired by his allies, and grudgingly said he might release his income tax returns this spring.

Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Small business owners say they're getting more optimistic about the economy, and about their own prospects. That's according to a survey by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, an influential business group. And this is among several recent reports suggesting the economy is continuing to improve.

NPR's Chris Arnold has more.

CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Small businesses are getting more confident. And that's a good sign, says John Silvia, the chief economist at Wells Fargo.

The European company Airbus reports it took a record number of orders in 2011 — more than 1,400. The surge was driven by demand for its revamped A-320 aircraft which is supposed to be more fuel efficient. Meanwhile Boeing sold only about 800 aircraft last year.