NPR: Story of the Day Podcasts

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Funny, moving, exceptional, or just offbeat -- the NPR story people will be talking about tomorrow. The best of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning NPR programs. Primary Format : Unknown Language : Unknown Also Listed as: City : Unknown State/Province : Unknown Country : Unknown Region : XX User Tags: User Votes: RSS Feed Website People found this Podcast Searching for: View this Podcast on a Google Map. Podcast iTunes Link Text Only listing of NPR: Story of the Day Podcasts Methings.com listings of NPR: Story of the Day Podcasts If you like this podcast, you might also like:

In North Korea, Lavish Praise For The Heir Apparent Kim Jong Un is playing a prominent role in his father's funeral and is already the object of fulsome praise from North Korea's official media. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Angels Send Message Of Peace To Juarez, Mexico Young evangelicals are dressing up in silver makeup and wings made from cast-off comforters to spread their message of peace in this violent border city. They say they're no longer afraid of confronting murderers and corrupt police: "We're in God's hands." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Last U.S. Troops Make Quiet Exit Out Of Iraq There were a lot of lasts at Contingency Operating Base Adder in southern Iraq as U.S. troops prepared to leave: the last briefing, the last patrol, the last hot meal. The base was the main staging ground for all troops exiting the country, and it was the last U.S. base to close. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Endorsement Kicks Off Romney's Battle For S.C. The Republican presidential candidate celebrated Gov. Nikki Haley's announcement Friday, just weeks before the South Carolina Republican primary. He still faces a tough fight in the state, which for three decades has identified who will be the GOP nominee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Hitchens, In Life And Death, An Unaware Cosmos Christopher Hitchens, the author and essayist who died on Thursday, was known for his assertive atheism. From scathing books about Mother Teresa and God, to the way his final days played out as a debate over the harm or benefit of prayer, his most lasting legacy may be his duel with religion. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tracking An Order In Real-Life Santa's Workshops A lot happens between clicking "place order" on an online purchase and finding it on your doorstep. With more and more holiday shopping taking place over the Internet, fulfillment centers large and small are busy processing orders this season. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | When It Comes To Marriage, Many More Say 'I Don't' Marriage — it's so last century. A new report out on Wednesday finds the share of all U.S. adults who are married has dropped to its lowest on record, at just 51 percent. If the trend continues, the institution will soon lose its majority status in American life. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Airplane Mechanics: A Farm Team For Everyone Else? It can be expensive to learn to be an airplane mechanic, but once you become one, there are higher-paying opportunities in places like the military or the natural gas industry. For one airplane maintenance facility in Oklahoma City, that means hundreds of jobs go unfilled. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Who Are The Young Farmers Of 'Generation Organic'? There's a surge of youthful vigor into American agriculture — at least in the corner devoted to organic, local food. Thousands of idealistic young people who've never farmed before are trying it out. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Arguing Over A Tax Cut Few People Notice Congress and the White House continue to debate the future of a 2-percent payroll tax cut that expires at the end of the year. Meanwhile, most voters aren't even aware they're getting it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Horror For The Holidays: Meet The Anti-Santa The Krampus is a character from European Alpine folklore. It stands on two hooves, has horns growing out of its skull and carries a basket to haul away naughty children. For those who get sick of the saccharine season, a good Krampuslauf is just the thing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | GOP Objects To 'Millionaires Surtax'; Millionaires We Found? Not So Much The Senate has again rejected proposals to extend the payroll tax holiday through next year, with Republicans objecting to using a "millionaires surtax" to pay for it. NPR tried to find millionaires who also object — but with little success. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Grass Mattress Was A Stone Age Bed And Breakfast Scientists have found what they say is the world's oldest bed: a 77,000-year-old grass and leaf mattress in a cave in South Africa. And the people who made it were crafty: Atop layers of sedge grass were leaves from a plant known to repel insects — key for living in buggy, dank caves. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Friendly Advice For Teachers: Beware Of Facebook A New Jersey teacher posted comments on Facebook against a gay history exhibit at her school. Another teacher could lose her job for a post in which she called her students future criminals. Incidents like this around the country spark heated debates over privacy and free speech. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Calif. Takes Big Step Toward Greenhouse Gas Limits California's radical new law will put a statewide cap on the amount of greenhouse gases coming out of smokestacks and tailpipes. Utility costs will no doubt rise, but advocates of the law say it will also create new businesses and spur development and deployment of green technologies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Found: Earth-Like Planet That Might Be Right For Life The planet, dubbed Kepler-22b, isn't much larger than Earth and is orbiting a star in a region that's not too hot and not too cold — just the kind of place that could be home to liquid water, and maybe even life. But don't pack your bags just yet: It's 600 light-years away. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Poor Economy Defers Small Idaho Town's Dream Unemployment is especially stubborn in rural places. In central Idaho, the recession has left Fairfield struggling for survival. Not long ago, it was poised for growth, but this summer, unemployment topped 16 percent. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Gingrich's Popularity: A Winning Boost? The former House speaker is now the focus of the race to become the GOP presidential nominee — and with that comes the heat. Despite recent criticism, Newt Gingrich insists he'll stay positive. The big question is whether he can sustain his surge in the polls. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Afghan Women, Rape Law Offers Little Protection A recent U.N. report suggests that laws to protect women in Afghanistan from rape and forced marriage are still not being enforced. As NATO prepares to leave, concerns grow that women's rights will be further compromised. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama's Hope: A Younger, More Diverse Electorate The young, educated and ethnically diverse voters that make up some of President Obama's key constituencies will be a bigger percentage of the electorate in 2012. But this demographic shift may not be enough to compensate for the president's dwindling approval ratings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Big Solar Project Moves Forward Without Uncle Sam SolarCity says it will install solar systems on the roofs of up to 120,000 military homes, with financing coming from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It's the first time a project of this scale has been launched without the federal government basically co-signing the loan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Hard Times Inspire Ky. College Students To Action Berea College's 1,600 students come from low-income households, and sophomore Emily Nugent says they "know about the challenges Americans are facing." Inspired by their own diverse backgrounds, they're taking up causes like standing with the newly poor, helping immigrants or embracing their heritage. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Military's Brain-Testing Program A Debacle The U.S. military is spending tens of millions of dollars to test every service member's brain to find out who suffered a traumatic brain injury during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. But an investigation by NPR and ProPublica has found that military leaders are refusing to carry out the testing program. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Hampshire Takes Another Look At Ron Paul The Texas congressman drew less than 8 percent of the vote in the state in 2008. But things could be significantly different this time as Paul reaches into new corners of the electorate: He's adding independents and registered Republicans to his base of young voters and hard-core libertarians. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Roving Science Lab Charts A Course For Mars Launched Saturday morning, the six-wheeled Mars Science Laboratory boasts a suite of high-tech instruments to study the planet's geology. It will land on the planet in August 2012, lowered gently to the surface on a cable by a rocket-powered helicopter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Catholic Mass Already Causing A Stir This weekend, Catholics may experience a surprise when they attend Mass. The words and music are different, thanks to the first major change of the English-language Mass in 40 years. Supporters say the new prayers are more elegant; critics say they're clumsy and are a triumph of conservatives. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | How Private Is Your Email? It Depends The law that governs the privacy of cloud computing was written 25 years ago, when the concept of storing emails and other data away from the personal computer wasn't the norm. Some big-name tech companies are asking Congress to step in and clarify Americans' online privacy rights. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Robert Johnson And Pablo Casals' Game-Changers Turn 75 Two hugely important recordings, made by pivotal musicians an ocean apart, were made on the same day in 1936. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Gingrich's Past, A Lesson On Ambition The former House speaker began his career as a history professor at West Georgia College. "He thought he could have some kind of impact, to get kids to think," says a friend and former colleague. "But he really wanted to get into politics." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Santorum: Early Political Work Influences Him Still Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says he learned to run a lean campaign from a former Pennsylvania state senator's wife. Now he's employing those skills in Iowa, hoping to stun the political establishment with a surprise win in January. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Young, Gay And Homeless: Fighting For Resources In New York City, nearly 4,000 young people are homeless every night — and a good number of them identify as gay, bisexual or transgender. But there are only 250 beds for them, which angers some advocates. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Arson Forensics Sets Old Fire Myths Ablaze At the ATF fire lab in Maryland, setting houses on fire is all in a day's work. As researchers learn more about how fires start, they're shattering assumptions and shedding new light on old cases. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Will Football Remain King At Penn State? The school has one of the most lucrative football programs in the country. But now, with a child sex abuse scandal coming to light, some are questioning the program's influence on campus. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Why Brain Injuries Are More Common In Preemies Each year more than 60,000 babies are born weighing less than 3.3 pounds. As scientists learn more about how brain injuries occur among these very premature infants, it could point the way to possible prevention and repair strategies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Squabbles In Washington Frustrate Job Seekers Since September, President Obama and Republicans in Congress have been fighting over jobs. With so much political focus on jobs, NPR checks back in with the people we've been following as part of our Road Back to Work series. They started the year unemployed and searching for work. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Mark Kelly Tells Of Giffords' 'Courage' In Recovery The retired NASA astronaut, who has written the new book Gabby: A Story Of Courage and Hope, goes into detail about his wife Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' recovery since she was shot in the head on Jan. 8. His constant refrain is that she's "improving all of the time." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off In the 1950s, Rand felt that her ideal of unfettered capitalism was missing in politics. But today, her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol. Her philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought, many people don't even recognize it as hers anymore. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Big Sky Country Has Lots Of Room For Optimism Billings, Mont., has its share of natural resources. But residents attribute their ability to weather the economic storm to a diversification of services beyond oil — like agriculture, financial services and health care. "It's just a great day here in Billings," says a leader of a new library project. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Teachers Unions Mobilize In A Fight For Their Lives Ohio's rejection of a plan to scale back collective bargaining rights for public employees this week was a big victory for labor. In particular, it showed how important the nation's teachers unions have become beyond the classroom. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Bonus Army: How A Protest Led To The GI Bill When World War I veterans returned from overseas, they were promised a cash bonus for their service — but they wouldn't get their money until 1945. Then the Great Depression struck. Desperate for relief, in 1932 a group of veterans from Portland, Ore., went to Washington to demand early payment. The protests led to violence — and eventually the GI Bill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | N.Y. Plant's Neighbors Expose Regulatory Gaps After residents of Tonawanda became sick, they rallied to fight high levels of hazardous chemicals emitting from a dilapidated plant. In doing so, they revealed weaknesses in the way the EPA regulates air pollution. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Power For The Planet': Company Bets Big On Fusion Inventor Michael Laberge is building a machine that aims to generate electricity through nuclear fusion — the same process that powers the sun. His goal is "insanely ambitious": He thinks he can do it using a much cheaper approach than that used by existing multibillion-dollar fusion labs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Plutonium Problem: Who Pays For Space Fuel? NASA has relied on a special kind of fuel, called plutonium-238, to power robotic space missions for five decades. that it sometimes seems easier to chart a course across the solar system than to navigate the budget process inside Washington, D.C. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Oklahoma Town Battles Powdery Carbon Pollution After 726 formal complaints, a union lockout, protests and lawsuits and settlements totaling about $20 million, residents in Ponca City no longer have daily struggles with carbon black. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Farmville' Makers Putting Stock In Virtual Goods Zynga is a company that makes money by selling nothing. Or, to be precise, by selling imaginary things — like tractors that plow farms on Facebook. Zynga is America's first "virtual goods" company to file for an initial public offering, but how real is the company's value? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Andy Rooney, '60 Minutes' Commentator, Dies A distinctive voice — and character — in television news has died. Andy Rooney, who was 92, was a signature essayist for CBS News for decades. Rooney was one of the most famous curmudgeons in American public life. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Bangkok, Residents' Anger Rises With Floodwaters Flooding that has killed more than 400 people in Thailand continues to make its way south into the capital, Bangkok. Tempers are flaring as some residents complain the government is sacrificing poorer areas to the waters to protect more affluent and industrial areas closer to the city center. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Marine's Death, And The Family He Left Behind When Marine Cpl. Derek Wyatt left for Afghanistan, his wife, Kait, was pregnant with their first child. Three months later, Derek was dead. A day after his death, Kait was induced, so she could give birth and attend his funeral. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Climate Change Has Calif. Vintners Rethinking Grapes Familiar French varieties aren't well-suited to high temperatures, so some researchers suggest cross-breeding to make the grapes more heat tolerant or drought-resistant. But once you breed pinot noir with something else, you can't call it pinot noir anymore. And marketing new wines is a challenge. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | To Reignite Its Light, Las Vegas Needs To Diversify Las Vegas has 13 percent unemployment and the country's highest foreclosure rate. But there are short-term signs of life, including Zappos' bringing 1,000 jobs downtown, and long-term potential in medicine and IT. Mayor Carolyn Goodman says that to prosper, the city needs to offer more than gaming. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Houdini Relative Unlocks Some Family Secrets You'd think if you were a relative of someone as famous as Harry Houdini, you'd know it. But George Hardeen, 59, didn't find out he was Houdini's great-nephew until he was a teenager. His grandfather was Houdini's brother. But the family DNA wasn't something anyone really talked about. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The 'Ick' Factor: Bugs Can Be Hard To Swallow Lots of creepy crawly things will appear on doorsteps and fence posts for Halloween, but will they be on your dinner plate? Insects are being proposed as a cheap and environmentally friendly food source. Long accepted around the world, eating bugs is considered, well, gross to many in North America and Europe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After Scandal, Solar Industry Looks On Bright Side At an international solar convention, companies were optimistic about their future and new products. There are certainly causes for concern in the industry — like a looming controversy over China's subsidization practices — but industry executives point to fast growth and new ideas in the market. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Why GDP Is Like GPA It's an important indicator, but there's a lot it doesn't tell you. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Workplaces Feel The Impact of Obesity From cubicle farms to auto factories, accommodating larger and heavier employees has become a fact of life. One in three U.S. adults is obese, and researchers say the impact on business can be boiled down to a number: $1,000 to $6,000 in added cost per year for each obese employee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tribes Question Foster Group's Power And Influence In South Dakota, hundreds of Native American foster children are being placed in a large private group home, which gets paid millions of dollars, instead of with family or other members of their tribes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Where The Marijuana Grows: Feds Target Landowners Federal agents, who have been raiding cornfields and vineyards in the Central Valley in California, are now going after the landlords — threatening to seize buildings where marijuana is sold and farmland where it's grown. The collision between state and federal law is creating confusion and panic among both landowners and medical marijuana users. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Families Broken Up As Immigrants Flee Alabama Fearing deportation, women and children are arriving at a migrant center in Florida without their husbands, who've stayed in Alabama to work the harvest. The scenario has created hardships for the women who can't work — and a migrant center that doesn't have enough money to serve them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Arts Giving Is Up, But Hold The Applause While the overall U.S. economy seems to be stuck in neutral, one bright spot is that charitable giving to the arts is up 5 percent more than last year. It's good news, but a new study cautions that much of that support serves audiences that are wealthier and whiter than the country as a whole. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Back To Jobs: Obama Reaches Out To 'All Americans' As President Obama tours the nation ahead of the 2012 election, he's visiting Democratic and Republican territories alike. Amid a time of big news abroad, the president is continuing to push his jobs bill at home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | School Debt A Long-Term Burden For Many Graduates As the nation's student-loan debt climbs toward $1 trillion, many students face 20-year repayment plans. The average debt is $24,000, but some owe far more and say this burden influences life decisions, from buying a house to whether to have children. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Frustration Over Jobs Unites 'Occupiers' In Boston The Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have attracted all kinds of people and all kinds of causes. Walking around the protest site in downtown Boston, though, it doesn't take long to figure out many of the protesters have the same problem: They can't find jobs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Informal Media Team Behind Occupy Wall Street Volunteers monitor social media and produce the group's Livestream to get news to their followers. Some say it makes them think about a career in journalism; others joined to get their message out. "Getting in front of the camera [and] trying to inspire people ... is just who I am," says one volunteer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Paintings Reignite The Bob Dylan Copycat Debate Legendary songwriter Bob Dylan is once again at the center of a controversy about plagiarism, but this time it's not about his words or his music — it's about his painting. Many of the pictures in his new show are direct copies from historical photographs, and some fans are calling foul. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Herman Cain's 9-9-9 Plan Gets A Closer Look Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is surging in the polls. He credits his success to three numbers: 9-9-9. Tax experts say the plan would most likely cut taxes for the rich and increase the burden on the poor and middle class substantially. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | King's Legacy Remembered At Memorial Thousands attended the formal dedication Sunday of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the National Mall. It was an emotional day for those, including President Obama, who came to honor the slain civil rights leader. Obama said King's work "is not complete." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Difference, Herman Cain Says, Is 'Substance' An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll out this week puts a new name at the top of the race for the Republican presidential nomination: Herman Cain. The poll shows the former head of Godfather's Pizza is at 27 percent, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney just 4 points behind. Cain spoke with Weekend Edition Saturday host Scott Simon about his surge to front-runner status. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Changing Face Of Seeing Race Blacks and whites in America both widely approve of interracial marriage, according to a recent Gallup Poll. And in practice, all racial and ethnic groups are marrying each other more than ever. Still, it hasn't been that long since most Americans strongly opposed such marriages. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Gas Drilling Boom Brings New Life To Steel Industry A natural gas drilling boom in Pennsylvania is helping the economies of Rust Belt cities long accustomed to bad news. Drilling requires steel — lots of it — and that has manufacturers expanding and hiring new workers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Before Politics, Huntsman Aspired To Rock Star Fame Before GOP presidential hopeful Jon Huntsman served as governor of Utah, a corporate executive, and U.S. ambassador to China, he had another youthful calling: Huntsman was a rock 'n' roll musician in a band called Wizard. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Some Latinos See Obama 'Betrayal' On Immigration Latino leaders say the administration hasn't done enough to push for comprehensive immigration reform in Congress, while deporting too many immigrants. Still, the administration has sued to overturn tough immigration laws in two states, and is weighing challenges in others. For the president, it's a difficult political balancing act. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Wis. Business Hopes To Help Break The CD Habit Murfie will burn your old discs to a digital file, recycle the cases and even resell the album online. It's part eBay, part iTunes, the company says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 21st Century Protest Music: Will There Be Another Dylan? Should There Be? An artist has yet to grab center stage in the Occupy Wall Street protests. The political movement has gone viral without a leading musical voice. Instead, there is a field full of freestyles. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Economic Reality Of Tough Immigration Laws The immigration issue is often debated in terms of justice, rights and the protection of our borders, but there's a business story to be told as well. The question is: Can the U.S. economy really function without undocumented workers? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Rick Perry, A Restless Life On The Farm Before he was elected governor of Texas, or to any of a series of positions going back more than 25 years, Perry grew cotton and raised cattle on land that his family had worked since the late 1800s. In every campaign, he has run as a man shaped by that experience. But real life on the farm was far less romantic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Steve Jobs' Greatest Legacy May Be Impact On Design Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday, did not invent the computer, or the mouse, or the smartphone, or MP3 players. But it was his vision that made them accessible, user-friendly and enormously popular. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Gap Grows Between Military, Civilians On War A new survey of 4,000 military service members and civilians shows a gap between the two groups on issues ranging from patriotism to nation-building. Also, about one-third of veterans say neither the Afghan nor Iraq war was worth fighting, compared to nearly half of civilians. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama, Banks Trade Fire In Debit-Card Debate President Obama dived into the controversy over Bank of America's plan to start charging a monthly $5 fee for the use of its debit card, suggesting the bank is mistreating its customers. For its part, the bank says the new fee is designed to recoup the billions of dollars it is losing as a result of a consumer protection law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After Solyndra, Other Energy Loans Draw Scrutiny The now-bankrupt solar company Solyndra was just one of the clean energy businesses that got loan guarantees from a federal program that ended Friday. In all, the Department of Energy program financed 28 projects with $16 billion. A Republican leading hearings on Solyndra says loans were rushed out the door. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Lassos, Not Luaus, For Hawaii's Cowgirls Hawaii's had cowboys since back in the 18th century. Today, their daughters carry on the tradition. At all-girl rodeos around the islands, women from 13 to 60-something barrel race, rope and ride. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Recycled Water Quenches San Antonio's Thirst Texas has implemented widespread water restrictions due to a historic drought. Still, many large Texas cities are using up to 200 gallons of water per person per day. San Antonio is guzzling much less with the help of a state-of-the-art water treatment plant. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Brewers And Beer Lovers Tap Into Craft Beer Craze Sales of craft beer have risen 15 percent this year, while sales of mass-produced beers have dipped. Innovation within the industry is exciting for aficionados — many of whom will attend this weekend's Great American Beer Festival, considered the premier venue for new breweries to get noticed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Social Security: The 'Third Rail' No More? Texas Gov. Rick Perry has called the program used by 55 million Americans a "Ponzi scheme" and a "monstrous lie." Recent polls show many Republican voters are willing to give him a pass on that. But that may not be the case in a general election. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Hard Economics Of High Holy Days As synagogues head into High Holy Days, they're finding that the economy is fundamentally affecting their finances. Some rabbis are giving away tickets for people who can't afford them, and others face deeper financial problems not seen since the Depression. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Political Ads Target TV, But Not Everyone Is Tuning In The 2012 presidential election is more than a year away, but that's not keeping political advertisers from targeting the TV airwaves. However, a survey has found that the TV audience is shrinking — especially the young voters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Boom Reshapes Oil World, Rocks North Dakota Breakthrough technology is allowing previously untapped oil to be drilled in the U.S., Canada and South America. And experts say that's moving the global energy supply's center of gravity away from the Middle East and toward the Americas. In a decade, they say, that could make the U.S. a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia. Small towns like Williston, N.D., are reaping the benefits — and bearing the burdens — of the boom. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The New Standoff: Clean-Car Jobs Vs. Disaster Relief The House's stopgap spending bill, rejected by the Senate on Friday, takes money from a federal clean cars program to offset spending for disaster aid. Some Republicans see the move as a matter of prioritization, but opponents say it would put American manufacturing jobs at risk. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Data Put Cosmic Speed Limit To The Test A fundamental rule of nature is that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. Now, physicists working in Europe say they may have discovered a subatomic particle that breaks that speed limit. But that extraordinary claim is being greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Bike Infrastructure Hits Congressional Speed Bumps More cities nationwide are investing in ways bikes and pedestrians can share the road with cars. Still, the projects have been slow to catch on in other places, most notably in Congress, where some lawmakers feel these and other "transportation enhancements" are not an appropriate use of federal dollars. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Political Heat Is Nothing New For The Fed Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has been criticized recently by Republican presidential candidates who called for his firing and an audit of the central bank. Low opinions of the Fed come from a long history of criticism of its power and secrecy, extending back to Thomas Jefferson. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Who's Weighing Tax On Rich? Congress' Millionaires President Obama's "Buffett rule" would mean a new tax for people making more than $1 million a year, who currently pay a much lower rate than an average middle-class American. The president, in fact, proposed this rule to a group of people with a lot of millionaires in it: Congress. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Cherokee Nation Faces Scrutiny For Expelling Blacks The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma is risking millions in federal funding after its decision to expel about 2,800 African-American members. Known as Freedmen, these members are descendants of slaves owned by Cherokees, and some wonder if the move is racist. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Can Michele Bachmann Get Her Groove Back? From a back-of-the-pack start, the Tea Party favorite won an upset victory in the Iowa straw poll but lost ground when Texas Gov. Rick Perry got in the race. A feisty debate put her back on an upswing, but how long she can keep that momentum remains to be seen. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | At The Mississippi's Edge, Residents Cling To Land In the netherworld between the river and the levee outside New Orleans, there are a dozen eccentric structures. Some are rundown, some are handsome, and all of them are handmade — by residents who believe the land belongs to them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Beloved Car Of Cops And Cabbies Meets Its End Sales of the ubiquitous Ford Crown Victoria jumped 140 percent in August before its factory closed this week. At one body shop in Chicago that's open 20 hours a day fixing mostly Crown Vics, one cab driver explains the appeal of the car and its siblings: "It's very strong. Even if you get [in an] accident, you are safe every time." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Who Will Pay To Fix That Bridge In Ohio? President Obama will visit the Brent Spence Bridge, which runs between Ohio and Kentucky on one of the nation's busiest trucking routes, to push his jobs creation plan next week. Officials estimate it will cost $2.4 billion to reconfigure the bridge. The question remains: Who will pay? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Bone To Pick: First T. Rex Skeleton, Complete At Last Discovered in 1902 by the "Indiana Jones" of fossil hunters, the first Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton fascinated the public. It was sold off during World War II, but a lone rib bone remained forgotten in the archives of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Now, a century after it was unearthed, T. rex is finally whole. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Businesses In Joplin, Mo., Find Economic Opportunity The tornado that destroyed nearly one-third of the city took out homes, schools and businesses. To mitigate the ongoing impact on the local economy, business owners and the area's Chamber of Commerce are finding ways to re-energize the local market. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Agency Takes New Approach To Save Everglades Land In Florida, federal officials have released plans for a new wildlife preserve just south of Orlando. The Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge will include at least 150,000 acres, but there's a twist — most of it will remain under private ownership. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Reporter Recalls 'Reckless Courage' At Ground Zero William Langewiesche's three-part series on the recovery effort at ground zero, "American Ground: Unbuilding The World Trade Center," was the longest piece of original reporting ever published by the Atlantic Monthly. Ten years later, he warns against wallowing in the events of that day. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Corporate Taxes: How Low Can You Go? It's a common refrain in the Republican presidential field: The U.S. has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world. At 35 percent, that's true — on paper. Some corporations take advantage of complex international tax loopholes to pay almost no corporate taxes at all. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Man Who Roped Investors Into A Cattle Con In 2008, in Howard County, Mo., a crook was defrauding dozens of farmers across the country with the Midwestern version of the Ponzi scheme. Kevin Ray Asbury sold top-shelf Angus cattle to investors with the promise that they'd make money. And he made millions before his scheme was discovered by a small-town sheriff. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Where Is Billy? A Giants Fan Goes Missing, And A Team Goes Searching Billy had been to almost every Giants game in years. He'd become a fixture and an amulet of comfort for the team. Then on July 31, he just stopped showing up. Now the team, missing its friend and its good luck charm, is hoping for some good news. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Final Smash For America's Giant Particle Collider The U.S. was once a magnet for particle physicists, but Europe's Large Hadron Collider is now the biggest show around. As the Tevatron prepares to go dark in September, questions remain about the next step in U.S. physics research. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Memories Of Sept. 11's First Casualty Burn Bright Father Mychal Judge was a beloved Fire Department of New York chaplain known for savoring life. He was also the first recorded victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Ten years later, he's recalled as the priest who flouted convention, yet was also revered as a saint. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Nation's Jails Struggle With Mentally Ill Prisoners More Americans receive mental health treatment in prisons and jails than in hospitals or treatment centers, yet the criminal justice system was never built to handle people with mental illnesses. A judge in Miami-Dade County is trying to prevent those with mental illnesses who have committed minor crimes from ending up in jail. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Inside Track On New York City's High Line A decade ago, residents thought an old rail line above the city was an eyesore and wanted it torn down. Today, it's one of Manhattan's most popular public spaces. A new book gives the inside story of how Joshua David and Robert Hammond saved the abandoned track. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Change Is Hard': Army, Navy Hospitals Merge The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, on the grounds of the Navy's campus in Bethesda, Md., combines two flagship military hospitals in an effort to improve patient care. Combining two institutions with their own long — and separate — cultures and history won't be easy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Protesters, Keystone Pipeline Is Line In Tar Sand The prospect of a giant oil pipeline running from Canada to Texas has activists up in arms. About 800 people have been arrested in ongoing protests at the White House. The Obama administration says it will decide by the end of the year whether to approve the 1,700-mile-long Keystone pipeline. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Some U.S. Farms Trade Tobacco For A Taste Of Africa In states like Maryland, where agriculture was once dominated by tobacco, farmers are experimenting with new crops like African hot peppers. Local African immigrants come to pick the vegetables and spread the word. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | From Cheerleader To Air Force To A New Life While her peers went to college and joined sororities, Victoria Blumenberg joined the Air Force Reserves. At 18, she was an intelligence analyst briefing air crews in Kuwait. Now 25, Blumenberg is out of the military, and putting her young life together. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Families Skeptical As Arlington Tries To Repair Trust After reports revealed mishandling of remains at Arlington National Cemetery, military officials are working to reconcile burial records of the 330,000 people laid to rest there. But two families who questioned the burial of their loved ones say they aren't sure it's possible to regain their trust. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | States Search For Answers To Cheating Scandals Cheating scandals in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., have highlighted the pressure schools feel to raise standardized test scores. And as test scores become more and more important, experts say more attention will be required to guard against cheating. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Does Jobs Have Place In History Beside Edison, Ford? Comparisons can be drawn between the former Apple CEO and other great innovators like Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, both technological titans in American history. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Drought Puts Texas Ranchers, And Cattle, At Risk At an East Texas auction, the animals look pitiful. They're standing in 107-degree heat with their ribs showing, stressed out. The heat — and lack of rain — has forced many ranchers to sell off their stock. Many will retire; and few young ranchers are ready to step in. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Deportation Rules Give Boost To Gay Rights The government says it will now prioritize deportations, giving lower priority to those with families in the U.S. The Obama administration has included same-sex couples in its definition of family. But immigration control groups are blasting the new policy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Corn Farmers, There's Gold In Them There Fields Demand from the ethanol and livestock industries, big orders from China and a forecast of lower crop yields all mean one thing: Corn prices are soaring. That's welcome news for farmers. But some aren't sure when to sell because they fear they'll miss the boat on even higher prices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Clergy Sues To Stop Alabama's Immigration Law A growing number of critics say that the law that criminalizes all kinds of contact with undocumented residents — including harboring illegal immigrants — violates their religious freedom to be a good Samaritan. A U.S. district judge is considering Wednesday whether to stop the law from going into effect Sept. 1. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Sen. Baucus, Deficit Panel May Be An Opportunity The Senate Finance Committee chairman angered many liberal Democrats during the health care negotiations, when he took the public option off the table in a failed attempt to appeal to the GOP. Analysts say his place on the bipartisan deficit supercommittee could help "re-establish his credibility." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Ramadan Story Of Two Faiths Bound In Friendship Muslims usually flock to their local mosques for Ramadan prayers, but last year, the Islamic community of Cordova, Tenn., didn't have a place to go. That's when Pastor Steve Stone put an unusual sign outside his church. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Do More Jobs Mean More Government Spending? President Obama's bus tour across the Midwest this week could probably be summed up this way: jobs vs. deficits. Americans are clamoring for action on both, but action on jobs might mean more spending, which is a toxic word in Washington, as well as for many small-business owners. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Perry Makes Texas-Size Waves In Presidential Race Gov. Rick Perry plunged into the Republican presidential field this week with events in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And he demonstrated each step of the way that he's not shying away from controversy, or attention. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | States May Have To Readopt Deportation Program Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn was one of three governors to pull their states out of the federal Secure Communities program earlier this year. But this month, the Obama administration told state officials they would have to participate. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Scientists Crack The Physics Of Coffee Rings Why do drops of coffee dry as a clear blob with a dark ring around the edge? Researchers say it has to do with the shape of particles in the liquid. But the new study's implications go far beyond your morning joe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Hillary Clinton: U.S. Diplomacy Is Stretched Thin Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that U.S. diplomatic efforts require more resources for important programs in several parts of the world, particularly in Arab states undergoing rapid change. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Slice Of Fame, Pizzerias Spar Over 'Oldest' Title The title is generally thought to belong to Lombardi's, a pizza joint in New York City that opened in 1905. But Papa's Tomato Pies of Trenton, N.J., says it deserves the crown since Lombardi's was closed for 10 years in the 1980s. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | And Now, Some Good News About The Economy It may seem hard to believe after such a tumultuous week on Wall Street, but a few areas are showing promise. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Aziz Ansari: From Business School To Hollywood When the creators of NBC's hit sitcom The Office approached Aziz Ansari about a new mocumentary-style sitcom, the 25-year-old stand-up comedian said yes — even though he had no clue what the show was going to be about. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Lone Star State Beginnings Of Rick Perry When Gov. Rick Perry announces his candidacy on Saturday, there will be a new sheriff in the GOP presidential contest — a man who, in more than two decades of electoral politics, has never lost a race. Perry was born and raised in West Texas, where he picked up survival skills that could come in handy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Last Man On The Mountain In the 1990s, retired miner Jimmy Weekley, 71, became an unlikely anti-mining advocate when a coal company proposed a mountaintop removal mine virtually in his backyard in West Virginia. Most of his neighbors sold out to the company and moved away, but Weekley has refused to budge. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Supercommittee's Picks Fuel Doubts Over Its Success The supercommittee is tasked with finding a longer-term plan for the federal government's spending. But the politics of the panel's co-chairs may be a roadblock to negotiations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tackling Obesity Amid Poverty In A Mississippi County Holmes County is the most obese county in Mississippi, the most obese state. The county is also among Mississippi's poorest. Officials are trying to get families to make healthier choices, and a co-op that farms the fertile Delta land is trying to steer residents toward fresh food. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Navy SEAL Team 6, A Huge Loss For A Small Unit Just three months ago, Navy SEAL Team 6 scored a monumental triumph with the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Now the same team is in mourning after more than 20 of its members were killed in Afghanistan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After Years Of Research, Confederate Daughter Arises No one believed Mattie Clyburn Rice when she told them her black father, who was born a slave, fought for the South. But once Rice found her father's pension application in North Carolina's state archives, Civil War groups started calling. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Stand By Me': A Love Letter To Childhood Innocence Rob Reiner's quintessential coming-of-age film marks its 25th anniversary this year. Actor Wil Wheaton, who played the lead character Gordie Lachance, talks about childhood and friendships — both on-screen and off. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Why Are Wedding Dresses So Expensive? A better question, according to one economist: Why are brides willing to pay so much? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Double Dip: Is U.S. Headed For Another Recession? The economy is already skirting the razor's edge that separates recession from recovery. Current numbers are less than encouraging, and the country faces a number of challenges just a little further in the future, including another decision about raising the debt ceiling. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Long, Hot Road To Modern Air Conditioning As record heat waves sweep across America this summer, it's hard to imagine life without the cool breeze of air conditioning. Although it may be taken for granted now, the air conditioner as we know it now has hundreds of years of history behind it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Redondo Beach: Unusual Leadership Dodges Red Ink The mayor of Redondo Beach, Calif., is both a traditionalist and a precedent-breaker. Mayor Mike Gin is gay, Asian and a Republican in a heavily Democratic state. Seen as socially liberal but fiscally conservative, the mayor has pulled together various city leaders to make cuts and avoid a deficit. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Boehner's District Assesses His Role In Debt Talks House Speaker John Boehner has represented Ohio's conservative-leaning 8th District since 1990. In the past, it's been hard to find many who are critical of him, but his handling of the debt-ceiling negotiations has more residents offering criticism. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What Will We Watch As Drones Evolve? Drone technology is becoming increasingly affordable and accessible, with new potential for everyday use in the United States — and new worries for national security. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Weak Economy Is Good For Military Recruiting Justin Bock and his wife, Ashley, found themselves both unemployed with a mortgage to pay. But Justin had a backup plan: the Navy. Military officials say a bad economy is good for recruiting. As a result, the quality of recruits is the highest it's been in two decades. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | From Kings To The Average Joe: Gout Makes A Comeback Researchers have found that gout, a painful ailment of the joints, increased 44 percent between 1988 and 2008. They suspect it has a lot to do with the obesity epidemic and related health problems like diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Home-Buying Regrets: Two Military Families' Sagas Home values nationwide have fallen more than 30 percent since the height of the market, which means millions of people are underwater on their mortgages. But military families can't control when they get orders to move. So one family has let its house go into default — and another is living apart, for now. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What A Credit Ratings Cut Could Mean For The U.S. On Monday, President Obama warned Americans that the country's AAA credit rating would be downgraded if no deal is made. Experts say it won't be clear how big of a problem a credit downgrade would be until the markets react, but there's little doubt that a default will be very costly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | One Woman's Struggle To Shed Weight, And Shame Kara Curtis is one of 70 million obese Americans, and the issue dominates her life. Curtis, 37, has seen every dress size from 26 to 6. Despite countless diets and untold resources spent on fitness, she says, "I'm morbidly obese. And it's just overwhelming." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Same-Sex Couples Exchange Vows In New York New York's same-sex marriage law went into effect at midnight. Seconds after, gay-rights activists Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd exchanged vows at Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls, N.Y., hopes that gay marriage can redefine the town as a wedding destination. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Ever Wonder What A Woolly Mammoth Sounds Like? French artist Marguerite Humeau realized there was no field of science dedicated to preserving the sounds of extinct animals. So she set to work reconstructing the vocal tract of Lucy, one of the earliest known hominids. While she was at it, she rebuilt a woolly mammoth's voicebox, too. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Tribe Called Quest: The Rise And Fall Of A Legend They were one of the most successful and influential groups of all time. They came up with an original style which stood apart in their time, the early '90s — and somehow, they managed to do it together. They are no longer together. A new film tries to explain why. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Does British Scandal Risk Murdoch's Hold On Empire? So far, the crisis under Rupert Murdoch's leadership has been costly. It killed a $12 billion bid of the largest broadcaster in the U.K. The company's shareholders lost billions of dollars in market value. The News of the World was closed forever, and there are a series of criminal investigations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Imam Arrests Show Shift In Muslim Outreach Effort The arrests of two imams in Florida by the FBI didn't spark outrage or demonstrations from the local Muslim community. Instead, the way the arrests were handled is being lauded as a model for how law enforcement and communities should work together. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Terrorism Training Casts Pall Over Muslim Employee A three-day seminar for local police and law enforcement in Ohio turned a state employee who ran a key Muslim outreach program into a suspect. And there's growing evidence that many of these training sessions are providing officers at the grass roots with a biased view of Muslims in America. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | No Stranger To Spaceships, N.M. Builds A Spaceport There's a lot of money to be made in shuttling back and forth to the space station, and several companies are competing in a new race to space. Whatever the new space vehicle is, it'll need a place to park — and New Mexico hopes it has the answer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As 'Friday Night Lights' Ends, It's Still 'Texas Forever' After five seasons, the Peabody-award-winning TV drama Friday Night Lights ended this week on NBC. The series centered around the fictional small town of Dillon, Texas, and the high school football team. Although the series was not a huge ratings success, it gained a cult following. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Emphasis On Innovation Could Boost U.S. Economy In a country with a 9 percent unemployment rate, innovation could speed up the economy's slow growth and create jobs. But turning a good idea into a good product isn't easy, and many companies are scared to take risks and fail. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What The 'New Normal' Means For Americans What exactly does it mean to be living in an economy with 2 percent growth instead of 3 percent growth? We can look forward to an even higher unemployment rate, smaller incomes and increasing government budget issues. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | End Of Shuttle Program Leaves Thousands Jobless Nearly 8,000 people who worked on the space shuttle were laid off, which is a blow to an area where unemployment is well above the national average. But even as the era ends, many on the Space Coast remain optimistic about the region's future. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As Income Gap Balloons, Is It Holding Back Growth? There's no question the economic recovery is going slowly. There's also no question that the gap between rich and poor Americans has grown wider than any time since the Great Depression. Analysts explore the links between income inequality and troubles in the overall economy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Student Brain Power Turns Exercise Into Electricity If only all the speed and strength of youth could be channeled into power. Turns out, it can. Some colleges and universities have started converting energy from exercise equipment into electricity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Have Sex To Stay One Evolutionary Step Ahead Scientists say sex has been a mystery because it doesn't make much sense, from a biological perspective. A new study provides the first direct evidence that sexual reproduction improves a species' ability to survive in a fast-changing environment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | To Prevent False IDs, Police Lineups Get Revamped Psychologists have long worried that traditional police procedures for photo lineups land many innocent people in jail. Last month, Texas joined nine other states that have passed measures requiring police departments to review and reform their eyewitness procedures. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What A Debt Default Would Really Mean For The U.S. There are just four weeks left to raise the federal debt ceiling or run the risk of a government default. That would leave the government, which now borrows more than 40 cents of every dollar, suddenly without a working credit card. Within 24 hours, the U.S. would rack up $20 billion in unpaid bills. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Ex-Homeless Speak Out To Change Perceptions A speakers bureau in Washington, D.C., is encouraging people to think about homelessness from a first-person view. "My life was just to survive on the streets," one speaker says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Whither The Astronauts Without A Shuttle? NASA is retiring its fleet of shuttle spacecraft to build something that can take humans past the moon and into deep space. That's expected to take years, leaving astronauts with some hard choices about what to do in the meantime. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Race To South Pole, Scott Lost ... Or Did He? The British explorer may have been beaten to the South Pole, but the experiments he conducted along the way changed science forever. What Robert Falcon Scott achieved, says author Edward Larson, went far beyond what his peers accomplished. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Toyota Steers Ads To Bring In More Minority Buyers Experts say Toyota markets to minorities better than any other car company. And it shows: The company's tailored ads bring in about 19 percent of black buyers, 22 percent of Latino and Hispanic buyers, and 33 percent of Asian-American buyers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Solid Start Puts Bachmann In Front-Runner Territory A day after her formal announcement that she's running for president, Rep. Michele Bachmann headed to New Hampshire, touting her conservative credentials. And right now, she is the leading alternative to front-runner Mitt Romney. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Child Cases: Guilty Until Proved Innocent NPR News Investigations, ProPublica and PBS Frontline analyzed nearly two dozen cases in which people have been accused of killing children based on flawed work by forensic pathologists. Some of the accused were later cleared, others like Ernie Lopez, remain in prison. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'That's Racist!' How A Serious Accusation Became A Commonplace Quip Once a loaded challenge, "that's racist" has become a staple of schoolyards and comedy routines. NPR's Neda Ulaby describes how the ironic diss went from meme to mainstream. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In New York, A Celebration Of Gay-Marriage Law Hundreds of thousands of people lined Fifth Avenue from Midtown all the way down to Greenwich Village on Sunday for the one of the world's oldest and largest gay-pride parades. The parade took place less than two days after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the state's new marriage-equality law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The FBI's 'Ten Most Wanted': Two Down, Eight To Go With James Bulger's arrest and Osama bin Laden's death, there are eight names left on the current FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. Who is left, and just what did these fugitives do? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Peter Falk, TV's Legendary 'Columbo,' Dies At 83 Peter Falk was perhaps best known for his role as the disheveled police Lt. Columbo, one of TV's beloved crime solvers. He died Thursday night at his home in Beverly Hills. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Math Videos Go From YouTube Hit To Classroom Tool Former hedge fund manager Salman Khan first made short videos to help his young cousins learn math and science. They became wildly popular online, and now, some adventurous school districts are trying to bring Khan's approach into the classroom. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Schools Blend Computers With Classroom Learning In an era of budget cuts, some schools are trying blended learning — where students in a class are divided into groups and then they split time between computer lessons and instruction with a teacher. The blended approach helps keep the feel of a small class without the cost of additional staff. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Great Lakes May Beat Atlantic To Offshore Wind States along the Atlantic Coast are vying to be first in the country to put wind turbines offshore. But an Ohio group aims to build the first offshore wind farm in America — in fresh water. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Inside San Quentin, Inmates Go To College The Prison University Project at San Quentin State Prison organizes volunteer instructors from schools like UC-Berkeley and Stanford, who conduct classes inside the prison walls. Inmates can earn degrees, and in the process, help bring calm to the once-notoriously violent prison. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A County Takes Down Prescription 'Pill Mills' Ohio's pain management clinics come under tough new regulations Sunday. Many of the clinics are blamed for prescription drug abuse in a state where the leading cause of accidental death is unintentional drug overdose. In the south of the state, Scioto County is leading the fight against the so-called "pill mills." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Dad Refuses To Pass Down Inheritance Of Illness Although surgery helped ease the tremors of Parkinson's Disease, Bob Hardman still has night terrors, his memory is fading, and he's struggled with depression. He's not taking these things sitting down, though. Until he dies, he says, he wants to see how much he can learn about the disease. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Songs For Father's Day: Dad's Favorites When He Was Your Age Last week we asked you to call your dad or your grandpa and ask what his favorite song was when he was your age. Their favorite songs surprised us, and your memories of listening to music with Dad reminded us why music is important to us in the first place. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Miserable Job Market Leads Many To Stop Looking Unemployment remains stubbornly high, but the 9.1 percent rate doesn't include the millions of Americans who are no longer looking for jobs. The Labor Department calls them "discouraged workers," and they include everyone from old factory workers to preschool teachers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Blind Would-Be Law Student Says Test Discriminates The Law School Admission Test or LSAT usually includes questions that require students to draw diagrams — which discriminates against blind test-takers, a Michigan law student says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Texas Gov. Perry Ratchets Up Conservative Credentials In the past two weeks, Rick Perry has gone from ridiculing journalists' questions about a possible run for president to openly considering it. Perry is known as a fiscal conservative first and a social conservative second. But lately he has made a concerted effort to burnish his social conservative credentials. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After 40 Years, Pentagon Papers Declassified In Full A top-secret Defense Department report on the Vietnam War that became known as the Pentagon Papers was leaked and partially published by The New York Times 40 years ago. Now all 7,000 pages are available in their entirety. "It's the real deal," says the man who organized their release. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Policing The Police: U.S. Steps Up Enforcement Federal civil rights lawyers are investigating more than a dozen departments, from Arizona to New Jersey, asking whether officers are discriminating against minorities or using too much force. "This is not a gotcha exercise," says the head of the Justice Department's civil rights unit. "We're in this to fix the problem." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Professor: Value Of College Extends Beyond Paycheck Mike Rose, a professor of education at UCLA, says it makes complete sense for people to be concerned about the economic benefits of college. But, he says, there are many other benefits that make going to college worth it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Big, Phat 'Rhapsody In Blue' As is true for so many great musicians, the compositions of George Gershwin live on well after his death. Case in point: Jazz musician Gordon Goodwin has arranged Gershwin's beloved piece for his brassy Big Phat Band. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As U.S. Sales Stall, Automakers Take Brands Overseas With falling demand in the U.S., American auto companies are finding that business is better abroad. Growing middle classes in Brazil, Russia, India and China are providing new markets for cars that U.S. automakers are eager to fill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As GM Hires, Michigan City's Outlook Brightens Hamtramck, Mich., has seen its fortunes worsen with the auto industry in recent years. But now General Motors is adding 2,500 jobs, and the Detroit suburb is turning optimistic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Is The Future Of Nuclear Power In Minireactors? Miniature nuclear reactors — some small enough to fit in a two-car garage — are an appealing alternative to massive, multibillion-dollar power facilities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Hollywoodification Of Presidential Politics Early ads from 2012 candidates look more like movie trailers for a summer blockbuster. Sarah Palin will be the subject of a feature-length documentary in theaters this month. Do voters have to be entertained into paying attention? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Don't Believe Facebook; You Only Have 150 Friends According to "Dunbar's Number," human beings have enough mental space to keep track of only 150 meaningful relationships. But how deep can those bonds be when friends, family members and co-workers are scattered all over the globe? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | John Edwards Affair Leads To Federal Indictment A grand jury accuses Edwards of using presidential campaign funds to support his mistress and their child. Edwards concedes he did wrong, but says he did not break the law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Scoreboard Doesn't Lie: The Indians Are Winning The Cleveland Indians are Major League Baseball's biggest surprise so far this season. They have the best record in the American League, despite having one of the lowest payrolls. The team's success has been a welcome surprise for its fans. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Yacht Maker Now Navigating Wind Power Industry After being forced to lay off half its workers, a Michigan yacht-building company has started to make wind turbines. The engineering principles are similar — and now the company is planning to start hiring again. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | NASA Says A Final Goodbye To Plucky Mars Rover Spirit was designed to last only 90 days and travel less than a mile on Mars. Instead, it kept chugging along for more than six years, taking thousands of photos and exploring nearly five miles. The rover has been silent for more than a year, and NASA says it has now abandoned hope of hearing from it again. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Lexi's Saga: A Lost Childhood Leaves Emotional Scars At age 5, she was forced to feed and care for her two younger brothers. Adopted by a loving couple, she and her "boys" are learning to live a normal childhood. But the journey is not without challenges. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Miles Of Flood Control, Without So Many Sandbags Hesco is becoming a household name in flood-prone areas along the Mississippi River — and for good reason. So-called Hesco baskets are holding back the high water from hospitals, power substations and residential areas. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Possible Pyramids Discovered From Space When you think archeology, you think shovels, brushes, brooms and other time-honored tools used to uncover archeological treasures. Now a new way to peer beneath the Earth's surface may have made an exciting find: more pyramids, buried deep under an ancient Egyptian city. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Patriot Act Extension Came Down To The Wire Congress scrambled to renew three controversial provisions of the anti-terror Patriot Act that otherwise would have expired at midnight Thursday. Minutes before that deadline, President Obama was awakened in France; there he ordered an automated signing into law of the four-year extension. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Can A Test Really Tell Who's A Psychopath? Twenty-six years after Robert Dixon Jr. went to prison for acting as an accessory to murder, friends and family swear that he is a new man, one committed to redeeming the second half of his life. But according to a test that holds incredible power — some say too much — in the U.S. justice system, Dixon is a psychopath, incapable of reform. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Art (And Artlessness) Of The Presidential Gift Gift exchanges among heads of state take some finessing. President Obama was criticized for giving Queen Elizabeth II an iPod two years ago. But during this week's visit, he got better reviews after giving the queen a handmade album of photos from her parents' visit to the U.S. in 1939. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | GOP Field Takes Shape, And Some Don't Like It By the end of this week, each of the Republicans considering a run at the 2012 nomination should have made a decision — and that has many in the party grousing about their choices. Says one Republican strategist: "The grumbling comes from the fact that people want perfection. They always want that white knight." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama Gets In Touch With His Irish Roots The president was warmly welcomed in Dublin and in Moneygall, a village that was once home to his great-great-great grandfather. Obama and Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny emphasized unity and cooperation between the nations. "We are bound by history and friendship and shared values," Obama said. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama Reiterates Comments On Israel's Borders President Obama told America's pro-Israel lobby on Sunday that his comments last week about Israeli-Palestinian borders was a public expression of longstanding U.S. policy. He explained that he wants Israelis and Palestinians themselves to negotiate a border that is different from the 1967 lines. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After The Rapture, Who Will Walk Your Dog? As doomsday approaches — at least according to one Christian evangelist — there's an Atheist businessman who's cashing in. For $135, Bart Centre promises to care for your cat or horse or potbellied pig after you've left this mortal coil. The rub? There's no money-back guarantee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Psst! The Human Brain Is Wired For Gossip Learning negative information about people can change the way you see them — literally, according to a new study. It's an unconscious response orchestrated by your brain's visual processing system, and it may have helped early humans exploit gossip to get ahead. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Report Blasts Massey For 'Deviance' In Safety Culture The first independent investigative report about last year's disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine was released Thursday. It details the corporate and government failures that led to an explosion that killed 29 mine workers in West Virginia. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Politicians And Their Wives: What's Fair Game? Political wives and their messy marriages have been at the top of the news this week — from Maria Shriver to Callista Gingrich to Cheri Daniels. It's not a new phenomenon. Says one political consultant: "There is no definition of fair game. So whatever you think it is, you can disabuse yourself of any of that notion." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Virgin Of Guadalupe Mosaic Surfs Into Calif. Town Our Lady of Guadalupe has mysteriously appeared beneath a viaduct near the ocean in Encinitas, Calif. The 10 foot by 10 foot brightly colored mosaic of the Virgin riding a surfboard is intricate and beautiful. The problem is that the piece is illegal and the mayor says it "qualifies for graffiti." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | If E.T. Phones, Will We Hear? SETI Loses Key Funding Astronomers at the SETI Institute say California's budget crisis has forced the shutdown of the Allen Telescope Array, a powerful tool in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Secret, Boxed-Up Bazaar Of Fantastical Things Started in 2009, Night Markets use rented box trucks to create a cluster of outlandish art installations and performance venues that last just 24 hours. With attractions ranging from smash trucks to singalongs, they bring a feast of the unlikely and unseen to even the wildest of imaginations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Cash-Strapped Cities Put The Squeeze On Nonprofits Across the nation, cities and towns say they can no longer afford to give a pass to tax-exempt institutions like universities and hospitals, which benefit as much as anyone from basic city services. Some nonprofits say they're already giving as much as they can. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | An Internet Rock Star Tells All Jonathan Coulton's songs almost never get played on the radio. He doesn't have a contract with a music label. Yet he's a one man counterargument to the idea that musicians can't make money making music. In 2010, his music brought in $500,000. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Divining Doomsday: An Old Practice With New Tricks Convinced that May 21 will mark the world's end, believers continue to warn of God's ensuing wrath. But they aren't alone: End times prophecies have existed for centuries, and today, they're on the rise, examining whether world events — from earthquakes to economic globalization — are signs of the coming Apocalypse. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Wiretaps: Not Just For Mob Bosses Anymore Secret recordings of hedge fund boss Raj Rajaratnam allowed prosecutors to demonstrate his intent to break the law and helped lead to his conviction on insider trading charges. The verdict sent a powerful message to prosecutors: Use more wiretaps to build business fraud cases. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Returning To The Battlefield, With A Brain Injury Many soldiers leave Iraq and Afghanistan with a mild traumatic brain injury, but months or years later want to deploy again. Using combat simulations and other tests, doctors at Fort Campbell in Kentucky are testing these soldiers' readiness for a return to war. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Young Hitchhiker's Guide To The Road: Smile NPR's John Burnett recently picked up hitchhiker Dereck "Chip" Williams, 23, in West Texas. Williams, who was on his way to British Columbia with a backpack and a new fiddle, says it's good for a hitchhiker to smile: "You don't want to be a bucket of misery on the side of the road." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Forget Bake Sales: Schools Turn To Luxe Auctions Cash-strapped schools across the country are staging swanky events to auction off everything from weeklong Italian vacations to an unwashed Lance Armstrong jersey, which sold for $110,000. "Probably the strangest thing," says one auction organizer, "was the vasectomy for you and your cat." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Perilous Job Of Conflict Photography The dangers of conflict photography weigh heavily, as does the knowledge that no story or photo is worth a life. But an assignment involves an adventure and a paycheck. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Alabama, Tornadoes Wiped Out Uninsured Homes In parts of tornado-devastated Alabama, some people had no insurance. Folks have lost jobs because of the bad economy and couldn't keep up with insurance premiums. According to one expert, up to a quarter of Alabama homeowners don't have property insurance. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Former Crack Kingpin On The Economics Of Illegal Drugs Do economists' theories about drugs hold up in the real world? To find out, we asked "Freeway" Rick Ross, one of L.A.'s biggest crack dealers in the '80s and '90s. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Happy 40th To 'All Things Considered' "When we started," says Susan Stamberg, "there was war in Vietnam, demonstrations against that war, the voting age was lowered to 18, the Beatles had broken up and in the air ... as well as on our air ... a sweetly notable absence of irony." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | U.S. Muslims React: Relief, But Not For All Many Muslim Americans nationwide are celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. They believe that he gave Islam a bad name — and that his death will make for a more positive attitude toward Muslims. Some U.S. Muslims, though, aren't convinced. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Years Ago, Sarah Palin Was Recruited As A Moderate In the early 1990s, the political establishment in Wasilla, Alaska, enlisted Palin as a moderate counterweight to the growing anti-government, anti-tax movement. The establishment ended up regretting it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Wisconsin's Political Split Hardens Into Great Divide No state may be more polarized right now than Wisconsin. That follows the effort by Republican Gov. Scott Walker to eliminate the collective bargaining rights of most public workers there. The gap is most apparent between Wisconsin's biggest cities and its smallest towns. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Scattered Across Ala. City: Broken Homes, Memories Residents of Tuscaloosa, which was devastated by tornadoes, salvaged what they could as President Obama and the first lady visited. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Judges Question Evidence On Guantanamo Detainees A side-by-side comparison of the Pentagon's secret Guantanamo detainee assessment briefs and federal court rulings shows that intelligence analysts and federal judges can reach starkly opposing conclusions from the same raw intelligence. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama Chides Media For Role In 'Birther' Controversy The president released his birth certificate to quell persistent rumors he was not born in this country. In doing so, he said that for too long the nation has been distracted from weighty matters by "sideshows and carnival barkers." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Conservative Heavyweights Trade Jabs Over Taxes On one side is Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, who's looking for a grand compromise to bring down annual deficits — and says the solution may involve an increase in tax revenues. On the other side is anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, who says Coburn is breaking a long-standing pledge not to raise taxes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Detainees Transferred Or Freed Despite 'High Risk' Hundreds of secret documents show that military and counterterrorism analysts sometimes found it difficult to determine whether those held in the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay were truly dangerous. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Neither Ban Nor Tumor Can Stop Top NFL Prospect Normally, when a college player has health concerns or disciplinary issues, his NFL stock goes down. This year, though, teams are clamoring to draft Robert Quinn — a kid with a tumor in his head who was suspended from college football for life. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Gas Prices: Lessons From The Carter Years In response to the rising cost of home heating oil, President Jimmy Carter suggested Americans wear a sweater and turn down the thermostat. That message, political consultant Tad Devine says, did not go over well. What plays better, he says, is empathy — the path President Obama seems to be taking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Hot Pot, Delivered: In China, A New Dining Experience The restaurant chain Haidilao has come up with the ultimate Chinese takeout: hot pot in your own home. The delivery man brings not only vacuum-sealed soup and slices of raw meat — but a portable electric hot pot plate and even a trash can. And he comes back for the trash later. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | $4 A Gallon Gas Prices: Who's To Blame? Gasoline prices are closing in on $4 a gallon. So whom can we point our fingers at? It's in part because of the unrest in the Middle East and because markets get a little "buzzed" in the spring. One expert says the markets this year are "sloppy drunk." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Everything You Know About This Band Is Wrong A stunt, a joke or a big lie? There was nothing special in the story behind the New Jersey-based band Delicate Steve. A press release used to promote the band, on the other hand, was something altogether more fantastic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | FAA Jarred Awake By Sleeping Air Traffic Controllers Federal Aviation Administration chief Randy Babbitt is meeting with controllers nationwide about an issue that has gotten the agency a lot of unwanted publicity lately: sleeping on the job. Babbitt says it won't be tolerated, but controllers say it's a common problem with no easy answer. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Hallelujah! At Age 400, King James Bible Still Reigns The King James translation, first published 400 years ago, is celebrating a birthday of biblical proportions. It's no longer the top-selling Bible, but in those four centuries, it has woven itself deeply into our speech and culture. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Big Swing: Robot Sportswriter Outperforms Human When University of Virginia baseball player Will Roberts pitched a perfect game this spring, his feat was covered by two kinds of writers — one human and one electronic. Of the two, the sports website Deadspin determined that the computer better captured the essence of the game. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Eight Is Too Much For 'Short Sleepers' Some people are able to function with far less than the recommended seven or eight hours of sleep a night. "Short sleepers" make up just a small percentage of the population and are more energized than regular sleepers — but that's not all. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Marathons, Once Special, Are Now Crowded The Boston Marathon requires participants to qualify in order to enter — a barrier that once kept the nation's oldest and most elite marathon from filling up. But this year, spots in the race were gone in just over 8 hours. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Public Employees Feel The Heat In The Sunshine State As in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states, Florida's public employees and their unions are on the defensive. Gov. Rick Scott's proposed budget cuts thousands of public jobs and requires workers to contribute part of their salaries to their pensions. Plus, the Republican-controlled Legislature is close to adopting a measure that directly targets public employee unions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Planned Parenthood: A Thorn In Abortion Foes' Sides The organization is the nation's largest single provider of abortions, yet it gets millions of dollars in federal funding with which to provide other services. Efforts over nearly three decades to change that have been unsuccessful — infuriating abortion opponents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Meth 'Cook Houses' Gone, Demand For Drug Lingers Five years ago, NPR reported on Riverside, Calif., then the crystal methamphetamine-producing capital of the U.S. Though meth labs disappeared as production moved to Mexico, appetite for the drug in Riverside did not. More than 300 children a year are rescued from homes here where drugs are sold or used. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tuskegee Airmen: 'Rock Stars' Of American History The number of living World War II veterans shrinks every week, and every time it does, another part of American history fades away. Last month, a distinguished group of black veterans — the nation's first black fighter pilots — reunited to drink a little, laugh a lot and swap war stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Dying People, A Chance To Shape Their Legacy If you were told you have only a short time to live, what would you want your family and friends to remember most about you? A hospice program in St. Louis helps patients leave statements that go beyond a simple goodbye. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 150 Years Later, America's Civil War Still Divides On April 12, 1861, the first shots of the war were fired in Charleston, S.C. And 150 years later, the city is still figuring out how to talk about the war and commemorate the anniversary. How do you honor the Confederate cause without also honoring the institution of slavery? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Fewer Russian Adoptions Since Mom Sends Son Back It's been a year since the adoptive mother of a 7-year-old Russian boy returned him to Moscow. The incident nearly ruined the adoption of Anastasia Tomlinson by a couple in Tennessee. Hers is one of roughly 1,000 Russian adoptions in 2010 by U.S. families, a more than 30 percent drop from 2009. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Feds Launch Inquiry Into Sexual Harassment At Yale The Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether Yale University has failed to properly respond to complaints of sexual harassment and assault. The inquiry comes as the office issues new guidelines on colleges' responsibilities for responding to sexual violence. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Georgia's HOPE Scholarship Dwindles Amid Cutbacks Since 1993, Georgia's HOPE scholarship has given all high school students the chance to go to college as long as they kept their grades up. But recent cuts in the program's funding mean most will no longer qualify for full scholarships. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | After W. Va. Mine Blast, Confusion Impeded Search One year after a West Virginia mine explosion took 29 lives, an NPR News investigation shows that questions persist about the time it took to find and identify victims, and notify their families. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Straight Outta Compton... On Horseback Richland Farms is a neighborhood in the heart of Compton, Calif. — called the eighth most dangerous city in America last year. But in Richland Farms, you're more likely to find chickens, cows and goats than guns and drugs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Marc Maron, On Talking To Comics And Soothing With His 'Neurotic Rage' Comedian Marc Maron has built a very popular podcast on long, searching discussions with personalities from the world of comedy. Weekend All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks to Maron about the dark side of comedy, how he started his podcast, and the dying art of conversation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Lost, Then Found: Shipping Containers On Seafloor Scientists surveying the bottom of the Pacific Ocean have discovered something they knew was there but had never seen before: a shipping container. Thousands fall off cargo ships each year, and it's not yet known how the boxes, which carry everything from chemicals to ribbon, are affecting the ecosystem. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Native American Intermarriage Puts Benefits At Risk More than half of all Native Americans don't marry other natives. As tribal members continue to intermarry, tribes may not be able to maintain their population and identity. Intermarriage can also lead to a loss of federal benefits. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | U.S. Sees More Female Farmers Cropping Up Since 2002, there's been a 30 percent increase in female-run farms across the country. Whether it's because they're interested in growing sustainable food, making a side income or contributing to the local food movement, they've brought the total up to about 300,000 farms run by women. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | How Priests Accused Of Abuse Can Go Undetected In Philadelphia, 21 Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse of minors slipped through the cracks. But with all the safeguards the Roman Catholic Church put into place after the sex abuse scandal in 2002, how could this happen? It turns out that there's a lot of play in those rules. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Put Those Shoes On: Running Won't Kill Your Knees Contrary to popular belief, running isn't damaging to your knees. In fact, a light running regimen may actually strengthen healthy knees. But researchers say if you've just had knee surgery or if you're overweight, don't suddenly jump right into an intensive running program. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Lost Roll Of Film Returns To Mystery Photographer Last winter, Todd Bieber found a roll of film in the Brooklyn snow. The beautiful black-and-white pictures inspired an international hunt for who took them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Somber Centennial For The Triangle Factory Fire On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers — mostly young, immigrant women — lost their lives in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory in New York City. On the 100th anniversary of the tragedy, people around the country are remembering the victims, and the labor legacy they inspired. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Creating Calm In Chicago's Schools An $18 million effort launched by Chicago Public Schools seeks to counter the culture of violence in homes and neighborhoods with what it's calling a "Culture of Calm." The program has changed everything from conflict resolution to the way students enter the building. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Getting To Chicago's Boys Before Gangs Do Seven years ago, a social worker in Chicago created Becoming a Man, a program that tries to curb violent behavior by offering young boys mentoring through counselors and peer group workshops. A critical element of the program involves students discussing their feelings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The End Of The Road: Saying Goodbye To Freeways A growing number of cities are tearing down freeways that have reached the end of their useful lives. Cities as diverse as New Haven, New Orleans and Seattle are either dismantling major roads or considering it to save money and improve the quality of life for residents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tracing Development Of Manhattan Block Manhattan bears little resemblance to its pre-colonial past, and a New York University economics professor has been tracing that history through a single city block. William Easterly gives host Guy Raz a walking tour of that block and talks about how it evolved from swampland to Apple store. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Twitter Turns Five: #happybirthday! The social networking site Twitter is celebrating its fifth birthday. The service now boasts 200 million users, who send more than 100 million tweets each day. Twitter co-founder Isaac "Biz" Stone talks with NPR's Scott Simon about the site — and explains how they settled on 140 characters. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tennessee College Bucks Annual Tuition Hike Trend Other than death and taxes, nothing has been quite as certain as the yearly rise in college tuition. But The University of the South plans to cut tuition by 10 percent next year. The school's president says the current practice of colleges charging the most they possibly can is no longer working. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For The Long-Term Unemployed, The Hunt Continues In St. Louis, Ray Meyer lost his banking job two years ago and Casaundra Bronner has been unemployed since March 2010. They keep hustling, applying for jobs and networking, but it seems that the longer they're out of work, the harder it is to get back in. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Has Obama Lived Up To His Pledge On Transparency? Two years ago, the president promised to run the most transparent administration in history. Scholars and privacy experts have some doubts about how well the administration has fulfilled its commitment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Corning's Journey From Cookware To Gorilla Glass Corning, a 160-year-old New York manufacturer, is still developing some of the toughest glass in the world. But its focus has shifted from kitchen products to the high-tech universe, with products like Gorilla Glass, which was used on about 200 million mobile phones last year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Blindness No Obstacle To Those With Sharp Ears Daniel Kish is blind, but gets around just fine through a method called echolocation. It's a method he's teaching other blind folks so they may explore their world independently. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Study: Diet May Help ADHD Kids More Than Drugs Kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be restless, impulsive, inattentive and difficult to handle. Many are treated with drugs, but a new study suggests that food may be the key. The study's author says a very restrictive diet can significantly reduce symptoms. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Revisiting The Reagan Shooting In 'Rawhide Down' In Rawhide Down, journalist Del Quentin Wilber offers new information about the March 1981 day that President Ronald Reagan was shot in Washington, D.C. Wilber and Jerry Parr, the head of Reagan's Secret Service detail at the time of the shooting, speak with NPR's Ari Shapiro. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Mitch Daniels: A 'Grown-Up' Brand Of GOP Politics The Indiana governor has won high praise for his emphasis on fiscal responsibility and a willingness to challenge GOP orthodoxy on defense spending and taxes. And in a speech last month that had many activists swooning, he called on the party to build a majority by reaching out to "people who never tune in to Rush or Glenn or Laura or Sean." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Legacy Of The CD: Innovation That Ate Itself Once the cornerstone of the record industry, CD sales have declined by more than 50 percent in the last decade. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Campaign Aims To Open Doors For The Homeless The New York City nonprofit Common Ground started a campaign to get 100,000 chronically homeless people in 70 cities into permanent housing. In San Diego — one of the participating cities — businesses, nonprofits and government officials are working together to end homelessness downtown. Some homeless advocates are skeptical they'll succeed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Union Changes Make Headway In Ohio Ohio could be the first state to dramatically curb the power of state workers unions this year. The Ohio Senate has passed a bill to restrict government workers unions to bargaining collectively for wages but little else. Though some Republicans voted against the bill, it's unlikely to be derailed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Air Force Museum Makes Its Case To Land A Shuttle The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio, is one of many museums vying for one of the space shuttles NASA will be retiring later this year. The museum director says the shuttle would be "the capstone of the collection." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Way You Learned Math Is So Old School If you're a parent of a certain age, your kids' homework can be confounding. Blame it on changes in the way children are taught math these days — which can make you feel like you're not very good with numbers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Lazy Cakes Leave You, Well, Lazy Lazy Cakes' "The Original Relaxation Brownie" is one of a few new products being stirred up to cool off the energy-boosting products craze. The brownies are selling like hot cakes in convenience stores and gas stations in several states. Still, laziness seekers are cautioned not to gorge on them. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Guantanamo North': Inside Secretive U.S. Prisons Reports about what life is like inside the military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay are not uncommon. But very little is reported about two units for convicted terrorists and other inmates who get 24-hour surveillance, right here in the U.S. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | High Court Rules For Anti-Gay Protesters At Funerals In an 8-1 vote, the justices decided that the First Amendment protects members of the fundamentalist Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., who stage anti-gay protests outside military and other funerals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | U.S. Sends Conflicting Signals On Gay Marriage Law The Obama administration says it will continue to deny health care benefits to the same-sex legal spouse of a federal court employee despite the fact that it has abandoned its court arguments in support of the Defense of Marriage Act. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama To Governors: Opt Out of Health Law If You Can Do Better President Obama offered governors a smaller concession to health spending flexibility than they expected by endorsing a bipartisan proposal to allow states to opt out of most of last year's health law's requirements. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Former D.C. Schools Chief Aims To Put 'StudentsFirst' Michelle Rhee became one of the most controversial figures in education reform when she tied pay increases to merit and fired hundreds of teachers who she said were underperforming. Now, she's heading up a group to advocate on behalf of children — not special interests groups like teachers unions. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Call To Slow Down California's High-Speed Rail Residents of Corcoran, Calif., an agricultural community with a high unemployment rate, question whether the state's high-speed rail line will move its economy forward or leave a trail of unpaid bills. A state legislator is leading the call for reassessing the plan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Relief Of Finding A Less-Than-Perfect Job Randy Howland took a customer service position that pays $10 an hour just to get back into an industry he loves. Many Americans are settling for less. Some, like Brian Barfield, are even taking part-time jobs to tide them over while they continue to search for full-time employment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Silver Star Recipient A Reluctant Hero The idea of being a hero doesn't really sit well with Leigh Ann Hester, so having an action figure modeled after her is, in a word, surreal. The doll is a tribute to Hester, a National Guard member awarded the Silver Star in 2005 — the only woman to win it for engaging in direct combat with the enemy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Women In War: 'I've Lived Out There With The Guys' Next month, a panel is expected to tell Congress that the Pentagon should do away with its policy banning women from direct ground combat units. In reality, many already see combat. In a weeklong series, NPR examines what it means to be a woman in uniform today and how that has changed over generations. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tuning In Space Noise For Sounds Of Life The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute is listening to some newly discovered planets. While they haven't heard any intelligent life — yet — there's still plenty of other noise to be heard in space. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Man's First Best Friend Might Have Been A Fox In a dusty, ancient burial site in northern Jordan, archaeologists have made a startling discovery. It seems some 16,000 years ago, several millennia before any animals were domesticated, humans may have been making an early attempt to keep pets. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Hibernating Bears 'A Metabolic Marvel' A new study finds that despite lowering its metabolism by 75 percent, a bear's internal temperature barely drops. Bears also don't lose muscle mass or strength, and researchers hope the study — the first continuous monitoring of a bear in hibernation — will be a boon for human medicine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | From Lens To Photo: Sally Mann Captures Her Love Sally Mann, considered one of the most influential photographers of her time, has recently focused her work on her husband of 40 years, Larry. About 15 years ago, Larry was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy. Mann photographed him in a project called "Proud Flesh." "He's really brave," she says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 8-Track Tapes Belong In A Museum The much-maligned 8-track tape is a thing of beauty for a new museum devoted to the format. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The New Detroit: From Robot Clothes To Luxe Jeans Michigan is encouraging companies to look beyond the auto industry to help the state thrive. So one supplier who specializes in making protective cloth coverings for the robots used in auto plants is expanding into the fashion world — producing blue jeans inspired by the Motor City. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Deaf Team's Standout Season Draws Cheers It's not until the team huddles that you notice anything different about Gallaudet University's Lady Bison. The university is the premier school for deaf students. Its basketball team competes against mainstream — hearing — teams, and this year, it's making a surprise run up the national rankings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Cartoonist Sees Bad Relationships In A Funny Way The divorced artist behind a relationship advice column has a new collection of his work. Warning: If you give this book to your sweetheart, you may find yourself spending Valentine's Day alone. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | U.S. Struggles To Balance Its Interests In Egypt For the Obama administration, forging an Egypt policy requires balancing competing goals and perceptions. The White House wants to be seen as sympathetic to the protesters' demands, but it has major interests at stake besides democracy, including counterterrorism and support for Israel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | E-Mails Reveal Concerns About Olympic Luge Track Newly released e-mails show leaders of the Vancouver Organizing Committee had discussed the speed and potential danger of the luge track ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Georgian slider Nodar Kumaritashvili, 21, was killed after flying off the track during a training run hours before the opening of the games. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Birth-Defect Breakthrough: Prenatal Spinal Surgery Doctors treating spina bifida report that surgery in utero reduces the paralysis and brain damage that often results when the defect isn't corrected until after birth. And children who had the prenatal operation were twice as likely to walk unaided later. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | At End-Of-The Line Prison, An Unlikely Escape Inmates at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility in Alabama practice the ancient Buddhist technique of Vipassana. They say the meditation helps them deal with the root of their anger. Inmates who go through the course have a 20 percent reduction in disciplinary action. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Homeless Camp Puts Down Roots With Seattle's OK Nickelsville, a camp that houses 100 of Seattle's homeless, has had to move about 17 times in three years. A former mayor tried to shut it down. Now city officials have designated a vacant lot for the camp — but some say a permanent tent city is not the answer to the problem. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Constituents Now Welcomed With Extra Security Lawmakers are changing their security procedures in response to the attack on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords at an event in Tucson, Ariz., last month. It's made many of them think hard about the balance between open interaction with their constituents and keeping themselves safe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Saving Our Daughters From An Army Of Princesses Seems every little girl goes through a princess phase, but could it be harmful in the long run? A new book explores the negative effects of overdosing on pink. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What Obama Is Learning From Reagan's Example President Obama has adopted Ronald Reagan as a kind of patron saint. As he tries to figure out how to deal with a divided Congress for the next two years, he appears to be studying the Great Communicator's approach. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Religious Groups Tackle An X-Rated Secret More than 300 churches are expected to mark Feb. 6 as National Porn Sunday, showing worshippers a video sermon that features current and former NFL players talking about their struggle with pornography. According to the leader of a Christian ministry, pornography is the elephant in the pews. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Coroners Don't Need Degrees To Determine Death Understanding the differences between coroners, medical examiners and forensic pathologist provides clues to the rising number of autopsy mistakes across the U.S. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Real CSI: Death Detective Dysfunction Every day, nearly 7,000 people die in America. And when these deaths happen suddenly, or under suspicious circumstances, we assume there will be a thorough investigation, just like we see on TV. But the reality is very different. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | California Challenges China In Rare Earths Mining China has cut its exports of rare earth minerals, used in cell phones, hybrid cars and computers. This has sent the price of rare earths soaring, making it profitable for the U.S. to compete with China in mining. A long-shuttered California mine has reopened and is expected to produce 40,000 tons of rare earths each year. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Lethal Injection Drug Raises Concerns A dwindling supply of sodium thiopental has forced states to find an alternative drug for lethal injections. Corrections officials in Oklahoma have started using pentobarbital, and Ohio says it will soon follow suit. But death penalty opponents have raised questions, since the drug hasn't been tested for this use. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | '4 Pounds Of Fury': Baby Cheetah Gets A Foster Mom Researchers at Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va., are using an unusual method to raise baby cheetahs: cross-fostering. That means that even though they're not siblings, the baby cheetahs are being raised by the same mother. The scientists are researching cheetahs in captivity so they can save the wild species. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Berkeley's Latest Liberal Cause: Sex Changes A City Council proposal to set aside $20,000 a year to help city employees afford gender reassignment surgery has some residents clutching their pearls over the cost during this tough economic time. The proposal follows the example of San Francisco, which has offered that benefit for a decade. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In A Small Corner Of YouTube, A Web Star Is Born As the entertainment world fragments across a growing number of platforms, some of the biggest winners have been rogue, online video personalities and producers. But even with 3 million followers on YouTube, Ryan Higa isn't exactly a household name. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Marine Corps To Secretary Gates: 'We're Relevant' Defense Secretary Robert Gates canceled the Marine Corps amphibious troop carrier and stopped the Corps from going ahead with its stealthy warplane. He's also suggested reducing the Corps by some 15,000 to 20,000 in the coming years. But Marines say they're not only busier than ever — they're irreplaceable. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New State Of The Union Question: Found A Date Yet? To show their commitment to bipartisanship, some Republicans and Democrats have pledged to sit with a member of the other party while listening to President Obama's speech Tuesday night. That's led pundits and lawmakers alike to bestow a new nickname on the usually solemn State of the Union: Date Night! Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Black Models Celebrated As Runway Revolutionaries Nearly 40 years ago, the U.S. and France staged the couture equivalent of a throw-down at the Palace of Versailles. The result sent seismic waves through the fashion world, largely because of the presence of several black models who walked for the American designers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Math Isn't So Scary With Help From These Monsters A new children's book written and illustrated by a Brown University math professor makes complex ideas like prime and composite numbers easy (and fun) to understand. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Touring Portland As It Prepares For Its Moment In The Comedy Spotlight Friday night marks the beginning of the new IFC sketch comedy show Portlandia, which takes a satirical look at the people of Portland, Oregon. Ari Shapiro investigated with a tour from one of the show's stars, Carrie Brownstein. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As Detroit Woos Hollywood, Opposition Mounts Multimillion-dollar tax credits have attracted more than 100 film and TV productions to Michigan. But, Gov. Rick Snyder's latest proposal to levy a flat business tax in the state may dissuade Hollywood's interest. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Abandoned Citrus Groves Produce Problems In Fla. Developers who once bought groves in the hope of turning them into residential areas have abandoned them in the post-housing-boom economy. Now, the groves have become breeding grounds for pests and diseases that threaten the rest of the state's citrus crops. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Sawing Apart Gym Shoes At The Port Of Long Beach Importers have a a huge incentive to try and get around tariffs, which means the people who work at our nation's ports, must constantly verify that importers are bringing in what they say they’re bringing in. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Retirees Lend A Hand To Refugees In Fargo, N.D. Giving + Learning, a nonprofit in Fargo, N.D., matches up retirees with refugees. In the past decade, volunteers have taught refugees how to speak English, how to drive -- or they have simply visited those without a car or job who may feel isolated. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Eisenhower's Warning Still Challenges A Nation Just days before President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in 1961, he gave the speech that coined the phrase, "the military-industrial complex." It was his warning to the nation, and some say it's a lesson America should heed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | '5000 Fingers' Sings Again: A Seuss Rarity Revisited The beloved children's author made just one movie -- a surreal musical about a diabolical music master with a piano so gigantic he has to kidnap kids to play it. It was not a hit -- but as you might imagine, it has developed a wildly enthusiastic cult. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Fame Through Assassination: A Secret Service Study Very rarely is politics the primary motive behind assassinations or assassination attempts, says a 1999 Secret Service study. Rather, public figures are chosen because in the assassin's mind, it's a guaranteed way to transform from a "nobody" into a "somebody." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Overburdened Food Banks Can't Say No To Junk The slow economy has kicked food banks across the country into high gear, with nearly 50 percent more people needing assistance than in 2006. But with the increasing demand, food banks are finding they can't turn away junk food like soda and candy -- even if it does hungry people no favors. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Flipper Bands Can Harm King Penguin Population The bands some researchers use to track the agile animals slows them down in the water. This results in lower survival rates and fewer chicks, a new study finds. "In other words, only the superathletes are surviving," one researcher says. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Pawlenty Touts Minnesota's Lessons On Health Care Former Gov. Tim Pawlenty gained attention for Minnesota's efforts to rework the health care system. As he considers a run for the Republican presidential nomination, he uses examples from his home state to highlight what he sees as flaws in the Democrats' health care plan. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Shoah': 25 Years On, Always In The Present Tense In 1985, an epic documentary stunned critics and viewers -- not just because of its nine-hour-plus length, but because of its excruciatingly detailed descriptions of what happened in the Nazi death camps. Shoah, says one film critic, puts the Holocaust in "a permanent present tense." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | As The Facts Win Out, Vaccinations May, Too Twenty-five percent of Americans believe vaccines could lead to development disorders in children. How can so many people be wrong? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Arizona Congresswoman Shot, In Critical Condition Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was meeting constituents outside a Tucson grocery store when a gunman opened fire. Eighteen people were wounded and six were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. Host Guy Raz talks to NPR correspondent Ted Robbins, who is in Tucson covering the story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Smell That Sadness? Female Tears Turn Off Men Female tears had physiological effects on men who smelled them: It lowered their sexual arousal and decreased testosterone levels, according to a new study. Though study participants didn't notice a particular smell, researchers say there must be a chemical in the tears causing the effects. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Gov. Scott, Ex-CEO, Aims To Run Fla. Like A Business Tea Party favorite Rick Scott ran as an outsider, spending $70 million of his own money. Now he promises to use his experience leading the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain to restart the economy and downsize government. But the state's $3 billion budget deficit presents challenges. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Training And Trust: Partners On The Flying Trapeze When your job is to soar and somersault 45 feet above the ground, you really have to trust your co-workers. As part of NPR's series on creative partnerships, Elizabeth Blair talked with "flier" Andrey Shapin and "catcher" Sergei Philippenko, two trapeze artists in Cirque du Soleil. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Immigration Enforcement Working, Numbers Show Although some politicians paint the Southern border as lawless and out of control, the FBI reports that overall violent crime in Southern border states is way down from a few years ago. Enforcement has increased, and fewer people are attempting to cross because there are fewer jobs available. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Flushing Out Lead, Metals With Chelation Therapy Health care providers use chelation therapy, which draws out toxic levels of heavy metals, like lead, from the body. But some parents are turning to home-based chelation kits and over-the-counter pills, which doctors say can be more dangerous. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Into The Tunnels: Exploring The Underside Of NYC Steve Duncan lives dangerously: The urban explorer has plunged far below the city surface to examine the subways and sewers of New York. Follow him on one of his (illegal) journeys through the city's underground. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Boomers Take The 'Retire' Out Of Retirement Baby boomers start turning 65 this year. That used to be the age when Americans stopped working and kicked back. But just like with every other stage of life they've gone through, baby boomers are expected to transform how we think about "retirement." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Closing Bell: Will Optimism For Stocks Return? The stock market is ending 2010 on an up note, and investors are slowly growing more hopeful about the economy. But wild swings in the market over the past few years, coupled with high unemployment in the U.S. and a banking crisis in Europe, have left investors cautious. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Road Fatalities Dip Thanks To Safer Cars, Economy In recent years, the number of people killed on American roads has fallen by more than 20 percent. Two likely reasons? Safer cars and a slower economy, according to a University of Michigan study. But deaths related to inattentive driving and motorcycle fatalities are up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Is Eco-Conscious Fur An Oxymoron? When you were trying to figure out what to buy for the environmentalist on your holiday list, fur probably didn't cross your mind. Some ecologists and fashion enthusiasts are trying to rekindle a market for fur made from nutria -- rodents that are destroying Louisiana's marshes. It's being promoted as guilt-free fur. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Army Boot Camp Embraces New-Age Fitness Young Army recruits reflect society at large: They're in terrible shape. So the top brass has revamped basic training to focus on core strengthening and mastering simple, precise movements. The mess hall fare has also been overhauled -- in place of deep-fried foods there are whole grains, low-fat yogurt and sliced fruit. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Long View: Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Kitchen Beloved chef Madhur Jaffrey prepared for a life on stage and screen as an actress -- but her longing for the food of her childhood led her to her other career. She looks back on her days in film and in the kitchen with NPR's Renee Montagne. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Jon Stewart's Latest Act: Sept. 11 Responders Bill The bill giving health benefits to the first responders who worked at ground zero had lingered for years. It looked nearly dead -- until comedian Jon Stewart nudged it over the finish line. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Face Of Homelessness: The American Family A new study reveals a new face of homelessness in a deepening foreclosure and economic crisis: the American family. Host Guy Raz tells the story of three families who have faced homelessness in the past year. Raz also speaks to Maria Foscarinis of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Jimmy Stewart Museum Needs A Bailout Just as Bailey Building and Loan fought to keep its doors open in It's a Wonderful Life, the Jimmy Stewart Museum is struggling to stay afloat. The museum in Indiana, Pa., has seen a drop in attendance and state funding over the years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Mistake That Stole Christmas? A Foreclosure Story A Boston family is suing Wells Fargo after the bank foreclosed on their home -- despite their enrollment in a loan modification program -- because of a single missing document. The family says the bank misplaced their paperwork. Similar cases are being brought against the major banks in other states. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For These Young Nuns, Habits Are The New Radical For the most part, these are grim days for Catholic nuns. Convents are closing, nuns are aging and there are relatively few new recruits. But in Nashville, Tenn., the conservative Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia are seeing a boom in young recruits. The average age of new entrants is 23. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Human Factor' Proves Key Obstacle To Terrorism In the past year, there have been at least three potential terrorist attacks that have failed because the plotters bungled the job. But analysts say the U.S. shouldn't take solace in the fact that plots fell flat; somewhere down the line someone may succeed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Pentagon Plan Won't Cover Brain-Damage Therapy NPR News/ProPublica Investigation: Tricare, which covers nearly 4 million troops and military retirees, denies coverage of cognitive rehabilitation to traumatic brain-injury victims, despite consensus from medical specialists who say it improves the quality of life. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Facebook Invasion Robs Sense Of Online Security In a photo posted to a burglary victim's Facebook wall, a man shows off the victim's stolen cash -- plus "a big smirk on his face." Do social media sites have a responsibility to help capture him? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Barbara Newhall Follett, Disappearing Child Genius In 1927, at the age of 13, Barbara Newhall Follett published her first novel to great critical acclaim. She was a famous child genius and destined to become the next great American writer -- until, one day, she just disappeared. Literary detective Paul Collins tells her heartbreaking story. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | From Steel To Tech, Pittsburgh Transforms Itself Some people still call it the Steel City, but the soot from a bygone era is gone. It's been replaced by efforts to transform the city into a high-tech center. And with an unemployment rate that's lower than the national average and 1,600 technology companies, the city is well on its way. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Retired Executive Helps Inmates Stay Out Of Jail Six years ago, retired cosmetics executive Mark Goldsmith got involved in a nonprofit that encourages New York civic leaders to volunteer in schools. But instead of going to a school, he went to a prison. Now Goldsmith runs a nonprofit that helps inmates at Rikers Island prison ace job interviews -- and go after their dreams. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Good Samaritans Open Their Homes As Safe Houses Since California closed a shelter for victims of domestic violence, one small farming town has asked residents to open their homes -- a type of underground railroad for those in need. But experts warn that homeowners don't have crisis training, support staff or security. Their only protection is anonymity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Woman's Foreclosure Nightmare: 'Like A Black Hole' After a bank employee's scam undermined her mortgage, homeowner Rachel Keyser thought she might get some help. Instead, her bank has repeatedly tried to foreclose on her house. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Latino Mayor May Be A Glimpse Of Things To Come The mayor of San Antonio, Julian Castro, is young, photogenic, well-educated and barely speaks Spanish. He may very well be the model of a new kind of Latino leadership. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | South Korea Free Trade Deal Could Be Boon For GM The Obama administration and the South Korean government have reached a free trade deal that could offer a potential big market for General Motors and other American car companies. One expert says South Korea is an especially desirable market because of its huge middle class and sophisticated financial system. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Youth In Nursing Homes Seek Alternative Care Young people are a growing percentage of nursing home residents. But despite alternatives for long-term care, many remain in nursing facilities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | TV Network Expands Bloomberg News' Horizon Many news outlets are shrinking in this economy, but Bloomberg News keeps expanding its ambition and reach -- especially with its television network. Touting the quality of its reporting, Bloomberg TV hopes to set itself apart from CNBC and other cable rivals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Bird Feeding Tips For The Urban Yard Bill Thompson, editor of Bird Watcher's Digest, visited Melissa Block's urban backyard in Washington, D.C., for a bird-feeding makeover. He offers tips to attract more birds -- from cleaning the bird feeder to ditching the lawn-care company and putting out high-fat bird food. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Trafficked Teen Girls Describe Life In 'The Game' According to the FBI, more than 100,000 children are sold for sex each year in the U.S. Many are brutalized by pimps and exploited by men who seek out young sex partners. In a Youth Radio investigation, two young women who recently escaped what they call "the game" share their stories. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Climate Groups Retool Argument For Global Warming The number of Americans who believe global warming is a scientific fact has dropped. Environmental groups and climate scientists who say the evidence for warming is clear are scratching their heads over this reversal and scrambling to find a new strategy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Military's 'Don't Ask' Testimony Won't Be Final Word It's been an important week -- but not a decisive one -- in the debate over gays in the military. Friday, the top generals in the Marine Corps and Army told a Senate committee that they are not ready for change just yet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A New Civil Right Looks For Stronger Enforcement An NPR investigation has found problems with federal enforcement of a Supreme Court case giving nursing home residents the right to receive care in their own homes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Care At Home: A New Civil Right Traditionally, who lives in a nursing home has been seen as a matter of health. But new health reform law and a U.S. Supreme Court decision say people have a right to get their long-term care at home. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Legacy Of George F. Johnson And The Square Deal On Dec. 1, 1948, the nation witnessed one of the largest funerals in U.S. history, for George F. Johnson. The owner of the Endicott Johnson Corp., at one time the country's leading shoe manufacturer, believed it was his responsibility to provide for workers' welfare. So he created what he called the Square Deal, which one welfare expert says is an anachronism today. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Twain's Summer Home: Visiting Elmira, N.Y. For 20 summers, Mark Twain wrote novels in a small cottage on Quarry Farm in Elmira, N.Y. Now, 175 years after Twain's birth, NPR's Tom Vitale makes a pilgrimage to the author's grave in Elmira's rolling hills. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Potential 'Don't Ask' Repeal Raises Practical Questions Some of the questions the Pentagon will have to answer if the law barring openly gay troops is repealed: Will legal gay marriages be recognized in the military? If not, will gay partners get the same benefits as straight married couples? And do housing arrangements need to be changed? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Drug Tunnel Discovery Signals New Cartel In Town It's the second sophisticated smuggling tunnel between Tijuana and San Diego that agents have discovered this month, and authorities say it's more evidence that a new cartel has muscled into Tijuana. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Imagine A Saturday Without Mail The U.S. Postal Service is losing billions and is considering whether to drop Saturday delivery. The idea falls flat with some, who point to people who rely on checks and prescriptions that could arrive on Saturday. But with UPS and FedEx serving our mail needs, do we need the post office at all? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Soul Mates': Shoe Entrepreneur Finds Love In Giving A few years ago, Blake Mycoskie traveled to a remote indigenous village in Argentina. There, he noticed that most of the children had no shoes. So he created Toms, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based company that gives away one pair of shoes for every pair purchased. The company recently celebrated donating 1 million pairs. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Amid Rising Demand, Price Of Coffee Beans Soars Brazil, the world's largest coffee grower, is soon expected to consume more coffee than the U.S. Then there are new coffee drinkers in India and China whose expanding economies have already pushed up prices for raw materials like corn and cotton. Now, it's coffee. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Kirk Crew, Refugees Retell Vietnam Rescue Saga It was one of the greatest humanitarian missions in the history of the U.S. military. But not everyone lived to tell the tale. Crew members from the USS Kirk and a family they helped revisit a Vietnam War story of survival and loss. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Civil Rights, Judicial Bias Surround Texas Drug Case A Texas state judge refused to back away from a drug case even after the local prosecutor and the state attorney general's office agreed to drop charges. Almost three years later, a now-fired high school basketball coach and his brother have watched their lives fall apart. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Siblings Share Genes, But Rarely Personalities Many siblings couldn't be more different from each other even though they share genes and environment. Take brothers Tom and Eric Hoebbel (above), whose personalities and lives are radically different. No one knows for sure why some siblings' lives diverge as much as they do, but there are three major theories that try to explain why. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Rural Democratic Lawmakers Join Endangered List Republicans took more than 60 House seats away from Democrats, two-thirds of their wins in districts where the percentage of people classified as rural was greater than average. The uprising against rural Democrats wasn't confined to the Midwest or the South. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Charm Gone, Town Kicks Out Free-Ranging Turkeys Six years ago, a pair of wild turkeys walked into La Conner, Wash., and soon a full flock was living in the small town. The town fell in love, but lately, the novelty of having 20-pound bird neighbors has worn off. Now the town council says they have to go. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Dirty Truth About That Other Jersey Shore NPR producer Art Silverman uncovers New Jersey's filthy situation: the Passaic River. U.S. manufacturing was jump-started along its banks. Now the river is so toxic, part of it is a superfund site, and much of the rest is, as one writer puts it, "a toilet." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Reinvention Of Calif.'s New And Former Governor In California, former Gov. Jerry Brown, 72, is preparing to return to the job he left 28 years ago. After his first stint in the governor's office and three failed presidential bids, Brown took a new approach: immersing himself in the nuts and bolts of running a big city as mayor of Oakland. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Calif. Upholds In-State Tuition For Illegal Immigrants California's highest court says illegal immigrant students who've graduated from state high schools will pay in-state tuition rates at California's public colleges and universities. It's a controversial, first-of-its-kind ruling and could have an impact on tuition policy in other states. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Growing Slowly, Humans Outsmarted Neanderthals Humans are the smartest creatures on Earth, and scientists are trying to figure out just how we got that way. Compared with our closest relative, the Neanderthal, who grew quickly and died young, our "slow growth" seems to explain our more sophisticated brain. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Farmers, High Grain Prices A Welcome Surprise Corn and soybean prices jumped as much as 30 percent this fall from last year, prompting farmers to sell their crops before they're even harvested. But high grain prices also mean consumers will be looking at pricier Thanksgiving turkeys in the grocery aisle. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Out Of The Closet ... In The Pulpit Of A Megachurch A few weeks ago, Bishop Jim Swilley sat down in front of his congregation at Church in the Now, near Atlanta, and told them a secret he's been holding onto for almost 50 years: He's gay. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Express Yourself: A Major New Showcase Of Gay Portraiture For the first time a major museum exhibition focuses on gay and lesbian portraiture. The National Portrait Gallery's expensive, expansive new show examines how modern art was influenced by GLBT painters, photographers and printmakers. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Female Veterans Bond Over Serving In Combat Yolanda Mayo and Rose Noel joined the Marines in the early 1980s, when women were required to wear the same regulation shade of red lipstick. Since then, they have watched the military change. Their friendship is bound by combat experience, motherhood and an understanding of what it means to be a female veteran. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Repeal In Lame-Duck Hands Earlier this year, the House approved a repeal of the law that prevents those who are gay from serving openly in the military. It was part of a larger defense bill, which stalled in the Senate. The lame-duck session of Congress starting Monday may be the last chance Democrats have to get it through. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In House, Both Parties Do A Leadership Dance With more than 80 new members on the way, the GOP has pledged to create two new positions within the party specifically for incoming freshmen. In the meantime, the Democrats are trying to figure out how to adapt their leadership from the majority's four official positions to the minority's three. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Humans' Big Brains Tied To Chimps' Immunity? Researchers at Stanford University have come up with a provocative hypothesis: They argue that the same set of genes that explains why chimpanzees are protected from some diseases also explains why humans have big brains. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Among Benefits For Walmart Workers: A Degree The world's largest retailer is offering its 1.4 million employees a college education. Education experts say it's an experiment worth watching, but it's up to the students to make the program a success. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Midterm Losses Bite Blue Dog Democrats Conservative and centrist Democrats were defeated in the House in large numbers this week. Especially hard-hit was the Blue Dog Coalition -- only 23 of its 54 members were re-elected, and it lost two of its leaders, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin of South Dakota and Baron Hill of Indiana. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | GOP Hopes Increased Diversity Attracts New Voters After 2008, the GOP made a concerted effort to recruit more diverse candidates. And it appears to have paid off, as a record number of Latino Republicans and the first black Republicans in years are headed to Capitol Hill. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | U.S. Uncovers Major Cross-Border Drug Tunnel Federal authorities have found an 1,800-foot tunnel connecting Tijuana and San Diego. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also seized about 30 tons of marijuana as part of the bust. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Labor Dept. Asks Court To Close Massey Mine In Ky. The Labor Department took an unprecedented step against a coal mine on Wednesday, claiming that persistently dangerous conditions at Freedom Energy Mine No. 1 require an immediate shutdown and a judge's intervention. Case documents say the Kentucky mine "has a high-risk level for a fatal accident." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | And iPhone Makes Three: Marriage In The Digital Age The digital era has been a boon for romance -- think online dating services. But when it comes to the rise of the attention-sucking smart phone, watch out. Marriage therapists are hearing an earful from spouses who say they're playing second fiddle to digital devices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | How To Cook French, With Shortcuts In Around My French Table, cookbook author Dorie Greenspan revels in the idea that French home cooks take shortcuts just like Americans do -- they just don't talk about it as loudly. She demonstrates how people can make a French version of shepherd's pie -- with and without shortcuts. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Sanity/Fear' Rally A Protest Of The Absurd Tens of thousands of people got together Saturday on the National Mall with comedians Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear was mostly a good-natured riot -- a laugh riot, that is. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Even If House Is Lost, Obama Finds Hope In History Three times in the past century, a sitting president's party has lost its majority in at least one house of Congress. And all three times, the president -- Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton -- went on to win re-election. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Prison Economics Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law The state's new law could send hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants to prison. An analysis of fund-raising documents, lobbying records and corporate reports shows that the private prison industry helped draft and pass the measure. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Army, Preventing Soldier Suicides Starts On Day 1 The Army says 79 percent of suicides occur within the first three years of service, whether soldiers have been deployed or not. The trend points to major transitions within the soldier's life as one of the main causes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Farm Work: Americans Steer Clear Of Apple Harvest In Washington state, agriculture wages are up nearly 8 percent over the last two years. Some of this increase may be attributable to increased immigration enforcement by the federal government. Still, unemployed Americans aren't applying for jobs in the state's apple orchards. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Tea Party Express' Shakes Up GOP And The Movement Formed by a longtime Republican consultant in California, it has grabbed national attention with its cross-country bus tour and high-profile association with Sarah Palin and others. But some in the Tea Party movement see the Express as old-fashioned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Avoid The 'Bonk': Running A Marathon Scientifically "Bonking" or "hitting the wall" is that awful moment when marathoners run out of gas. They've used up all the carbohydrate fuel stored in their liver and muscles, and their bodies are forced to switch, painfully, to burning fat. Now a marathoning Harvard-MIT student has figured out how to calculate that point. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'All Facts Considered' By NPR's Longtime Librarian Did you know that the average American drinks 22.7 gallons of coffee a year? Or that watermelons are vegetables? Kee Malesky does. For 20 years, Malesky, NPR's longest-serving librarian, has done the research to keep us all accurate. She compiles her favorite bits of "inessential knowledge" in a new book. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Housing Guy Apologizes For Housing Bubble Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have worked for decades to help more Americans become homeowners. Now, a former employee wants to apologize for doing such a good job of fulfilling that mission. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Supporting Those Left Behind By Military Suicides The increasing number of military suicides has left an indelible impact on surviving family members. An uneven network of support has allowed some to work through their grief and heal faster, while others are left angry and confused. The nonprofit group TAPS tries to fill the gap by bringing grieving families across the country together. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Home Foreclosures Continue Despite Delays Two major mortgage lenders announced plans to resume taking back homes as soon as possible. But delays over questionable paperwork have not eliminated the threat of foreclosure for homeowners. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Fast Fall For Once Mighty Megachurch With debt topping $43 million, the Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy protection Monday. Church officials say the recession has forced it to order layoffs and cut the number of TV stations airing Hour of Power. But with characteristic optimism, they insist the church will emerge from this crisis. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Pro-Gay Groups 'Desperate' For Obama To Take Action Some of the most vocal protesters who show up at President Obama's events are gay-rights activists, who say they've seen little to back up his promises to them, like ending "don't ask, don't tell." They found more to complain about when the Justice Department said it would appeal two pro-gay court rulings. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Death To Gang Members: The Feds' New Tactic Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana has an unfortunate claim on history. The gang member is among the first to be sentenced to death under the federal system of capital punishment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | RV Sales: An Indicator That's No Longer Lagging The RV industry has had a bumpy road lately, but may now be turning the corner. One dealer in Indiana says consumers are getting more optimistic about the economy. He's also seeing younger customers, who are drawn to high-end and high-tech features. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Poor Single Mother With Lots Of Credit Cards. (It's Not What You Think.) Not every transaction between a poor person and a credit-card company ends up with the credit-card company on top. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Voters Say They Want To Know Who Funds Ads Turn on a TV just about anywhere in the country right now, and you'll see tough political attack ads. In many cases, nonprofits are funding the ads and, therefore, do not have to disclose their donors. But does it matter who funds them? Voters in Pittsburgh say yes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Will Electric Cars Work For The Everyday Driver? The first mass-produced electric vehicles ever sold in the United States will begin to hit auto showrooms by the end of the year. The owner of a 15-year-old Honda on its last legs sets out to test-drive the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Parkway Built When Stimulus Money Was Popular These days, public works projects are meeting with opposition from politicians and voters across the country. It wasn't always this way. Many of the country's bridges, dams and roads -- among them the Blue Ridge Parkway -- wouldn't have been possible without public support Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Images Of N.Y. Islamic Center Meant To 'Educate' In releasing images of the much-debated cultural center planned for Lower Manhattan, the main developer says he wanted to show people what the project is all about. Sharif El-Gamal says the center will include much more than a mosque; a fitness center and Sept. 11 memorial are also planned. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Arizona Family Chooses To Live In The Middle Gregg and Lola Donnell, who earn right around the national median income, could work more, but then they'd have less time for what matters to them. The Donnells, who have three kids, choose not just to live within their means, but to live within their needs. And that suits them fine. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Farming Gives Colo. Family A Living But No Nest Egg Terry Walter estimates that his family of five earned about $48,000 last year. He's the third generation to work his land, and he faces a difficult combination of high debt levels and low profit margins that his father never had to worry about. Walter also worries about how he and his wife will afford to retire. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Single, Middle Class And Getting By The government says median income household is just under $50,000, and you'd think that single people in that category would be the most comfortable. But as Maryland resident Jada Irwin knows, a national median-income salary goes a lot further in some parts of the country than others. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Coming Out From Life Under 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Anthony Woods had two tours in Iraq under his belt, a Bronze Star Medal and a job offer at West Point. Then he outed himself to his commander, and everything changed. For Woods, being a closeted gay soldier under "don't ask, don't tell," was hard, but not being a soldier at all may be harder. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Howlin' Wolf: Booming Voice Of The Blues His name was Chester Arthur Burnett, but everyone called him Howlin' Wolf. He played harmonica, but some say he was the greatest blues singer of all time. His unique voice mesmerized audiences and hugely influenced rock 'n' roll. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Levi's Gives Struggling Town Cinderella Treatment Like so many Rust Belt towns after the collapse of the steel industry, Braddock, Pa., has street after street of boarded-up homes and shuttered storefronts. Now, Levi Strauss wants to make it a star -- just in time. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Midnight Shopping On The Brink Of Poverty On the last day of every month, low-income families descend on many Walmarts to stock up on necessities. That's because it's when their food stamps and government checks kick in. Retailers take note and stock their shelves accordingly with larger packs of items. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Rutgers Student Remembered As Shy, Gifted Violinist Tyler Clementi played violin with a "fire and passion" but was humble and quiet, his former teachers say. Now the 18-year-old's suicide after his sexual encounter with a man was broadcast online is drawing widespread attention to bullying over sexuality. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Tea Party's Tension: Religion's Role In Politics The Tea Party's strategy is to stay focused on fiscal issues rather than take a stance on social or religious issues. But that strategy could alienate many of its supporters who identify themselves as Christian conservatives. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Goldilocks' Planet's Temperature Just Right For Life Astronomers found a planet orbiting a star just 20 light-years away whose temperature is neither too cold nor too hot to harbor life. Scientists have not directly observed water there, but the planet’s mass is enough to hold onto an atmosphere and to protect liquid water on its surface. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | How Many L.A. Pot Clinics Will Survive Crackdown? In April, Los Angeles police began cracking down on clinics that weren't legally registered with the city. Now the city attorney is suing many of those still operating, but there are at least 35 countersuits challenging L.A.'s regulations.  Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Life After Foreclosure: Coping With Bad Credit The number of people with damaged credit because they could not pay their home loans keeps growing.  Millions have gone through a foreclosure or a short sale, when the property is sold for less than the balance due on their mortgage. Beyond the financial impact, borrowers say they feel stigmatized by low credit scores. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Is Obama Doing Enough To Win Over The Public? Legislative achievements such as the health care law, financial regulation and the economic stimulus bill are all under attack, and Democrats up for re-election are distancing themselves from the party. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | What Happens To Health Law If GOP Wins Congress? Several key provisions of the new health care law took effect this week, just as Republicans unveiled plans to repeal the law should they retake control of Congress. But getting rid of the new law could be an insurmountable task. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Frame Jobs: 'Buried' And Other Boxed-In Stories Despite the big screen's ability to show vast worlds, some directors love to narrow the focus. Director Rodrigo Cortes expands on the tactic (made famous by Hitchcock and others) by setting an entire film within an underground coffin where a contractor in Iraq has been buried alive. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Revealing, Reveling In Einstein's Relativity Einstein's theory of relativity posits that time -- what we perceive to be regular, consistent ticks on our watches -- isn't actually constant. Thought experiments from the early 1900s challenged our understanding of time, and now scientists have actual data to back Einstein up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Father: Army Ignored Complaints Of Afghan Slayings Army Spc. Adam Winfield's father says he tried to alert Army authorities to his son's concerns about his platoon leader's actions in Afghanistan. That platoon leader, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, and other soldiers, including Winfield, have been charged with killing Afghan civilians. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Manhattan Meets Grimm In Book Of 'Modern Fairies' In her new book, Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties, Lesley M.M. Blume creates a world in which trolls use bones for money and dwarfs dig rubies out of the Lincoln Tunnel. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Robert Plant: Born In England; Made In America It's urgent. It's acrobatic. It's pulsing with raw sexuality. It's the unmistakable voice of Robert Plant. The iconic Led Zeppelin vocalist behind the wailing "Whole Lotta Love" continues to challenge his instrument on his new album, Band of Joy. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Kitchen Revolution Aimed At Freeing Women These days there are magazines and television programs devoted to kitchen design, but it's an idea that took off only less than a century ago. In fact, as a new exhibit at New York's Museum of Modern Art shows, designing a kitchen started off as a political act. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Was Cardinal John Henry Newman Gay? As part of his visit to Britain Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI will beatify John Henry Newman, bringing the 19th century British cardinal one step closer to sainthood. But some question whether the revered cardinal and prolific author was in a relationship with his friend Ambrose St. John. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Whither Small Businesses? The Debate Over Tax Cuts The Obama administration says only 2 percent of small businesses will see their taxes go up if the Bush tax cuts expire. And while that's technically true, a much higher percentage of small businesses that employ sizable numbers of people would see a tax increase. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Boiling Mad': A Tea Party Origin Story Kate Zernike's Boiling Mad chronicles the rise of the Tea Party movement, which she says was driven by young, tech-savvy libertarians who have built the movement up from its grass roots. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama Tries To Convince Voters He Feels Their Pain A recent Washington Post/ABC poll found nearly half of all Americans don't believe President Obama understands the problems of people like themselves. In recent days, he's been stressing his support for those hit hard by the economy and bringing up his family's working-class roots. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Claims Of Border Program Success Are Unproven The Border Patrol points to three measures to prove Operation Streamline's success: It deters future illegal border-crossers, fewer people are apprehended for crossing illegally, and it allows the government to focus on more serious crime. But a closer look shows these arguments don't always hold up. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | University Declares A Week Without Social Media What if one day Facebook, Twitter and Instant Messenger just weren't there? Harrisburg University will face just such a reality this week when it enforces a campus-wide social media blackout. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | State Budget Gaps: Debt Holes Deepen States have cut spending and raised taxes to deal with growing deficits. The nation's smallest state, Rhode Island, has the most debt. In Illinois, a state representative was evicted from her district office for late rent payments. Even Tennessee, the state with the lowest total debt, is borrowing. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tax Code Overhaul As Tough As Doing Your 1040 There's broad agreement among economists that a new tax system should have few loopholes and relatively low tax rates. But that's where the consensus ends. Rewriting the tax code in Washington is tricky, and as one tax expert put it, right now there is no politically feasible fix. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Century Farms: A Slice Of History, Threatened American Century Farms have been owned and farmed by the same family for more than 100 years. In East Tennessee, farm heirs reflect on the land's history, keeping the farms going despite development and a tough economy -- and dreading the day they may have to sell. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Green Building: A Real Estate Revolution? Green building now accounts for close to one-third of new U.S. construction. That's up from 2 percent in 2005, according to McGraw-Hill Construction, which tracks the industry. The U.S. Green Building Council, and its LEED rating system, have changed construction practice -- and policy -- around the country. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Becoming Miles: The Journey Of Changing Sexes Megan Taylor grew up feeling she was living in the wrong body. In her 20s, she decided to do something about it. First, she changed her name to Miles. Miles began taking testosterone, scheduled a double mastectomy and began changing his body into one that felt right. The hardest part was telling his parents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Flying Cars? Conveyor Belts? The Future Of I-95 When Interstate 95 was being built 50 years ago, high-speed roadways and high-tech cars were a fantasy of things to come. These days, I-95 commuters fantasize about simply being able to move. With smarter cars and sky-high roads, the future may just come to their rescue. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Eat Your Way Down I-95, And Other Stops To Make In their seven-year love affair with Interstate 95, Stan Posner and Sandra Phillips-Posner have found the best Polish sausage, Berger cookies and a battleship you can spend the night on. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Now We Are Alone: Living On Without Our Sons A year ago, the author and his wife were part of a happy family with a bright future. Then their two sons were killed in a car crash. Now they feel a certain bond with other parents who understand that children die a second time "when no one speaks their name." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Why We've Given Less To Pakistan's Flood Victims Americans have given $25 million so far to help victims of Pakistan's flood disaster -- far less than the U.S. donations made in the immediate aftermath of other major disasters. Experts cite the relative lack of news coverage, attitudes toward Pakistan and the nature of the disaster itself. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | At War's End, U.S. Ship Rescued South Vietnam's Navy On April 30, 1975, the Vietnam War officially ended. U.S. Navy ships involved in evacuating Americans and Vietnamese were steaming away from Vietnam -- except one. The USS Kirk got a mysterious order to head back. Its mission? To lead the remnants of the South Vietnamese navy to safety. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Forgotten Ship: A Daring Rescue As Saigon Fell The overlooked story of the USS Kirk is one of the most significant humanitarian missions in the history of the U.S. military. On April 29, 1975, as South Vietnam was falling to Communist forces, a small U.S. Navy ship took on a big role in rescuing thousands of refugees rushing to the Americans for shelter. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Athlete's 'Nope To Dope' Became 'No To Sports' In the 1980s, Katherine Hamilton was a track star with big dreams. A heptathlete attending college on a full-ride athletic scholarship, she was training hard without steroids but "watching everybody else go forward, year after year after year." As performance-enhancing drugs took over her sport, she decided to sign away her scholarship and leave school. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | New Orleans' Public Housing Slowly Evolving When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans five years ago, more than 5,000 families lived in the city's public housing developments. Now, only a third of them are back in public housing. While some who are in the new developments are struggling with the different community, others are over the moon with the shiny new units. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Paying A Local Price For I-95's Global Promise Interstates changed the way we think about cities. The highways helped create the suburbs, the megalopolis and the 90-minute commute.  In return, Interstate 95 demanded sacrifices that changed some communities forever. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Shelling Out For A Chesapeake Bay Oyster Comeback Chesapeake oysters are a succulent treat that for centuries have been loved almost to extinction.  But some scientists and business people are making headway in bringing back the bivalve, for the sake of oyster lovers and the bay. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Texting, Skype Alter The Peace Corps Experience Until fairly recently, joining the Peace Corps usually meant living in a remote location and leaving behind family, friends and way of life. But mobile devices and the Internet are changing how volunteers serve -- and how they keep in touch with home. This connectivity is helpful for the volunteers, but not always for the Peace Corps staff. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Outsourced Call Centers Return, To U.S. Homes For years, Americans have had their customer service phone calls handled by people overseas. But the rising costs of foreign labor have led a number of firms to bring call centers back to the U.S., and they're hiring more and more people to work right in their own homes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Marines Need To Regain 'Maritime Soul,' Gates Says For the past decade, the Marine Corps has been fighting in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the U.S. doesn't need a second land Army. The Marines must be able to get ashore quickly and tackle small guerrilla wars that will be common in the coming decades. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Hard Fight For A Political Voice In Biloxi, Miss. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast five years ago, it sent a 30-foot-high wall of water ashore the coast of Mississippi. Sharon Hanshaw, who lost her home and beauty shop in Biloxi, says she's fighting for equitable development for her impoverished community. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Obama's Personal Faith Leaves Public Wondering The president's personal approach to religion makes some uncertain about just what he believes. A new survey says that only 1 person in 3 knows Obama is a Christian, while nearly 1 in 5 thinks he's a Muslim. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tribal Lands Struggle To Bring Clean Power Online Many tribal lands in the U.S. don't have electricity yet have a tremendous capacity to produce it from clean energy sources. Only one tribe is currently operating a utility-scale energy facility, as bureaucratic red tape and tax disincentives are hindering renewable energy development on Indian land. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Tenn., Mosque Location Isn't The Issue: Religion Is A proposal for a new Islamic center near Nashville, Tenn., has brought opponents and advocates into the streets -- far from ground zero. Some fear the center will breed extremism. Others advocate for the building as an example of religious freedom. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Can U.S. Take The Heat Of Canada's Oil Practices? Canada, the largest supplier of oil to the United States, is relying more heavily on controversial techniques to extract crude from its oil sands deposits. One of the methods includes pumping 500-degree steam underground to melt the oil and force it to percolate to the surface. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | American Lives: Reconsidering Henry Clay Henry Clay was a leading 19th century representative, senator, presidential candidate -- and slaveholder who condemned slavery. In Henry Clay: The Essential American, David and Jeanne Heidler try to make sense of the statesman's great contradiction. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Monkey Business: Fairness Isn't Just A Human Trait Humans and monkeys share more than physical evolutionary heritage -- they share many behavioral traits, too, like the concepts of fairness and curiosity. Monkeys, like humans, are able to recognize when they receive less than someone else. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Affirmative Action: How Far Have We Come? A 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the University of Michigan's race-based admissions policy included a prediction that such policies would no longer be necessary in 25 years. Just seven years later, with a shrinking white majority, immigration debates and a black president, commentators have been clamoring for an end to affirmative action at colleges and universities. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Skies Aren't So Friendly For Many Flight Attendants When JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater grabbed two beers and took an emergency exit slide earlier this week, he became an instant media sensation. He now also faces charges of criminal mischief and reckless endangerment -- but many flight attendants say they know where he was coming from. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Camp Introduces The Texting Generation To Opera Forget the bug spray and sleeping bags: At opera camp, the kids need only bring talent and a desire to sing. From singing to set design, the program introduces students to life in show business. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Unlimited Vacation Time Not A Dream For Some Unlimited paid leave sounded like a crazy idea to small-business owner Rosemary O'Neill's employees when she announced the policy early this year. The company has joined a tiny but growing group of U.S. businesses -- including Netlfix -- offering unlimited vacation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | For Some Democrats, Clinton Is Campaigner-In-Chief Former President Bill Clinton has been busy this summer, raising money and appearing at campaign rallies for Democratic candidates. In some parts of the country, he is proving to be more popular on the campaign trail than President Obama. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Scientists Try To Determine Oil's Impact On Sea Life The federal government says as much as half of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's well is still unaccounted for. Scientists are starting a giant search operation to try to figure out where the oil is and what its effects might be. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | When Did We Become Mentally Modern? Our ability to think in symbols -- the notion that objects can represent ideas -- is one of the key traits that make us human. We weren't always symbolic thinkers, and scientists are trying to figure out when our minds evolved this ability. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome: To Cabaret School Recent visitors to New Haven may have been greeted with an unusual sight: not the stressed-out Yalies, but singers from across the world uniting for the International Cabaret Conference, now in its eighth year. Run by a former club owner and taught by a who's who of cabaret superstars, it offers singers the chance to hone their craft. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Late-Life Lesbians' Reveal Fluidity Of Sexuality For many years, researchers assumed women who became lesbians in their 30s or later were simply repressed by society until they felt comfortable coming out. But one researcher suggests that's not entirely the case. Lisa Diamond says these women might have always had the capacity to become attracted to women, but might never have had a reason to act on it. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Jobs Report Taxes Obama's Political Capital Jobs have become one of the most important barometers in assessing the president's performance, and the latest report shows that, in some ways, the economy has slipped backward. The anemic economic recovery is taking a political toll on the president, amplifying his other challenges. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Republicans Push To Revise 14th Amendment The immigration debate sparked by Arizona's controversial new law has revived the debate over the Constitution's 14th Amendment, which grants automatic citizenship to almost any child born in the U.S. Critics say the 140-year-old amendment is an irresistible lure to illegal immigrants, while others say repealing the clause would be too drastic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Singular Spies: James Bond 007 And Alex Rider MI6 Author Anthony Horowitz loves nothing more than when a young fan asks him to sign a battered copy of a book in his Alex Rider series -- young adult fiction featuring a skateboard-riding teen spy. When it comes to his favorite thriller, he recommends Ian Fleming's "Crime de la Crime" in Goldfinger. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Christian Academics Cite Hostility On Campus Some religious conservatives say they can't get tenure, can't keep their jobs and are booted out of graduate school programs because of their views. But others say a spate of lawsuits is probably a smoke screen for academics who shouldn't get tenure for other reasons. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Armed And Deadly: Shoulder, Weapons Key To Hunt The shoulder altered the course of human evolution by giving us survival skills we never could have imagined without it. The shape of the joint allowed us to develop tools and weapons we could throw, like rocks and spears. And advanced weaponry meant better meals. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Scientists Take Quantum Steps Toward Teleportation "Quantum entanglement" may sound like an awful sci-fi romance flick, but it's actually a phenomenon physicists say may someday lead to the ability to teleport an object all the way across the galaxy instantly. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Ansel Adams Or Not? The Answer's Worth Millions It's an irresistible story. A building painter in Fresno, Calif., announces negatives he bought for $45 at a yard sale were taken by Ansel Adams. But the renowned photographer's family thinks the story is too good to be true, and the heat's on to prove the negatives' authenticity. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Once Again, Immigration Is A Hot Campaign Issue Republicans plan to use Democrats' opposition to Arizona's controversial law as a key talking point in this fall's campaigns. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Island's Recovery May Set Example For Gulf Residents Galveston, Texas, has endured oil spills and hurricanes. It took 10 months to cap the ruptured well that caused the Ixtoc oil spill in 1979. The aftermath of the spill was compounded by hurricanes and more oil. Decades later, residents have mostly forgotten the trauma and continue to recover, one disaster at a time. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Impact Of Childhood Obesity Goes Beyond Health Adults who have been overweight since high school risk a lifetime of disease, discrimination and poverty. A new study of obese 40-year-olds found those who were overweight teens were three times more likely to suffer chronic health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and hypertension. They were also much more likely to be unemployed or receiving welfare. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | College Students Hide Hunger, Homelessness A growing population of college students is facing hunger and homelessness as tuitions rise and the economy is slow to recover. UCLA has created an Economic Crisis Response Team to identify financially strapped students and help keep them in school. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Handy Bunch: Tools, Thumbs Helped Us Thrive The evolving anatomy of the human hand gave humans great dexterity and fine motor skills. With these advances came the ability to make stone tools and primitive knives. Anthropologists are now studying how our ancestors learned to make tools, and how these tools shaped our bodies. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Your Olive Oil May Not Be The Virgin It Claims The next time you reach for a bottle of extra-virgin olive oil, beware. A new study from the University of California-Davis found that more than two-thirds of random samples of extra-virgin olive oil didn't make the grade. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | White House Dragged Back Into Racial Fray The promise of the Obama presidency was that racial divisions would be seen differently with a black man in the White House. But this week's fiasco over the firing of Shirley Sherrod at the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows how the divide endures. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | NPR's 'Voice Of Experience,' Daniel Schorr, Dies NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr died Friday morning at a hospital in Washington, D.C. He was 93. Schorr broke major stories at home and abroad during the Cold War and Watergate. Robert Siegel discusses the life of the "walking history book." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Rafters Push For 'Right To Float' In Colorado A private landowner says he doesn't want people rafting through his property. Technically, the state constitution says the waterways are open to the public, but private landowners often own the riverbeds and banks. The issue was so contentious, the governor got involved. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Blacks Face Bone Marrow Donor Shortage African-Americans are less likely to receive life-saving treatments using bone marrow than whites. Low numbers of donors and rare genes make finding a bone marrow match less likely for black people than for white people. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Eating Nutritiously A Struggle When Money Is Scarce The Williamsons of Carlisle, Pa., live well below the poverty line. And in the family's struggle to obtain enough food, nutrition sometimes takes a back seat to necessity. Hunger in America is complicated. It's not just getting enough food, but getting the right food -- and making the right choices. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Drinking Raw Milk Is Worth The Risk, Advocates Say Selling raw milk across state borders is banned because of the risk that it could be contaminated with dangerous bacteria. Some people insist on drinking it, however, and go out of their way to find it. They say it's more natural and more healthful, but scientists aren't convinced. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | One Black Couple Who's Beaten The Odds, So Far Statistically speaking, Kendra and Brian Cosom were unlikely candidates for marriage. The 2000 census reports nearly double the number of unmarried African-Americans as compared to whites. Marriage rates are even lower in low-income, black neighborhoods like theirs. Married a year, the couple is learning that staying together takes much more than love. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Numbers Stations: Mystery Over The Airwaves In the forgotten reaches of the shortwave band, strange voices read out endless strings of numbers. The voices are coming from mysterious "numbers stations," long thought to be used in international espionage, including the recent Russian spy case. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Apple Offers Free Cases To Fix iPhone Problems Apple announced Friday it would give free protective cases to buyers of its latest iPhone. CEO Steve Jobs announced the giveaway to alleviate problems with the phone's antenna. Users had complained if you hold the phone a certain way, signal strength is drastically reduced. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Islamic Center Near Ground Zero Sparks Anger Emotions are running high around a proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from the destroyed World Trade Center. Plans for the Islamic center are supported by most politicians in Manhattan and by religious leaders of many faiths. But some Sept. 11 families and many conservative politicians are opposed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Tea Party: It's Not Just Taxes, It's The Constitution The Tea Parties started as an anti-big government, anti-tax movement -- T-E-A stands for "Taxed enough already?" But Tea Partiers have another pressing concern -- an obsession, really -- the United States Constitution. And they believe the Constitution is being subverted by President Obama and the Democratic Congress. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Cuban Theater Troupe Makes U.S. Debut Teatro Buendia, Cuba's premier theater company, is performing at the Goodman Theatre's Latino Theatre Festival in Chicago. This is the first time it has performed in the U.S. But don't think that the group blindly supports the revolution; it does not shy away from criticizing Cuba. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Elusive Debtors Foiled By Their Social Media Sites It's fun to connect with old schoolmates on MySpace and catch up with co-workers on LinkedIn. But would you want a debt collector as a Facebook friend? Some collectors are using social networking sites to catch delinquents. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Minnesota Girl, Sri Lankan Guy Still Turn Heads Interracial marriages are still relatively rare in the U.S., but the number is growing. In Cleveland, one couple cherishes their differences while leaving the double takes to others. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Odd Couple: Frank And Paul Target Military Spending You might think of liberal Democrat Barney Frank and libertarian Republican Ron Paul as a Congressional odd couple. The unlikely pair want to trim the Pentagon's budget by $1 trillion over the next 10 years, significantly reducing U.S. military presence around the world, including Europe. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Spielberg, Lucas Celebrate Rockwell's Iconic America What do Norman Rockwell, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas all have in common? Art, storytelling and a new exhibit that combines the filmmakers' Norman Rockwell collections for an exploration of the painter's cinematic Americana. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Stanford Ushers In The Age Of Bookless Libraries Stanford University's School of Engineering had more books than its library could hold. So school administrators built a new library -- with even less space for books. NPR's Laura Sydell reports that Stanford's counterintuitive solution marks a definite move toward digital collections over print. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 50 Years On, 'Mockingbird' Still Sings America's Song When it was published in 1960, Harper Lee's modest novel helped Americans think differently about race. Now, 50 years later, To Kill a Mockingbird still resonates in a much-changed America. NPR's Lynn Neary examines the lasting impact of Scout Finch and her father, Atticus -- a lawyer who defends a black man unjustly accused of rape. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Nixon Considered Nuclear Option Against N. Korea When it comes to North Korea, Nixon and Kissinger struggled with a similar "menu of options" as President Obama. But in 1969, one option they pondered was a nuclear attack, according to reports and a former fighter pilot, who says he was assigned to the mission. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Human Edge: Finding Our Inner Fish One very important human ancestor was an ancient fish. Though it lived 375 million years ago, this fish called Tiktaalik had shoulders, elbows, legs, wrists, a neck and many other basic parts that eventually became part of us. This is the first story in our summer series The Human Edge, in which we examine how evolution created the most versatile creature on the planet. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Kids First, Marriage Later -- If Ever Federal data from 2007 say 40 percent of births in America are to unwed mothers, a trend experts say is especially common in middle-class America. In one St. Louis community, the notion of getting married and having children -- in that order -- seems quaint. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Musical Message Discovered In Plato's Works It sounds like something out of a Dan Brown novel, but a scholar in Manchester, England, claims to have found hidden code in the ancient writings of Plato. If true, the secret messages would have made the ancient philosopher and mathematician a heretic in his day. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Who Will Live To Be 100? Genetic Test Might Tell Scientists have found that the key to living a long life doesn't just depend on having healthy habits -- genes matter too. If there were a medical test that could tell you whether you would live to 100, would you take it? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Can Your Genes Make You Murder? Using a gun and a machete, Bradley Waldrop killed his wife's friend and then wounded his wife. In the Tennessee courtroom, the question was not who did it but why. Enter neuroscience -- specifically, a forensic psychiatrist's testimony that Waldroup had a variation of a gene that inclined him toward violence. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Inside A Psychopath's Brain: The Sentencing Debate Brian Dugan pleaded guilty last year to raping and murdering 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in 1983, and he was put on trial to determine whether he should be executed. Neuroscientist Kent Kiehl testified that Dugan could not help his neurological makeup. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Not So Neighborly Associations Foreclosing On Homes Capt. Mike Clauer was serving in Iraq when he discovered that his home, which was completely paid for, had been foreclosed on for a couple of missed homeowners association payments. His $300,000 home was sold on the courthouse steps for $3,500. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Preserving Navajo History In Canyon De Chelly Every spring and summer, after the winter thaw allows, about a dozen Navajo families still return to their old homesteads at the bottom of Arizona's Canyon de Chelly. The canyon has cradled human civilization for thousands of years. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | An Evangelical Crusade To Go Green With God As the oil continues to spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Southern Baptist Convention is using notably strong language to call on the government -- and its own congregation -- to work to prevent such a crisis again. One leader says it's time evangelicals took action to save God's creation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | 'Double Take' Author: Skiing Hard And Staring Back People tend to stare at Kevin Michael Connolly: He's cute, fit, funny and a champion skier. The stares are usually inspired by something else, though; Connolly was born without legs. With his memoir, Double Take, out now in paperback Connolly talks with NPR's Scott Simon about dealing with unwanted public attention -- and the benefits of skateboarding. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Filmmaker's Goal: To See Combat Through GIs' Eyes In 2007, British photographer Tim Hetherington and American journalist Sebastian Junger traveled to Afghanistan to make a documentary. The resulting film, Restrepo, is an unflinching look at war through the eyes of the soldiers fighting it -- just life in combat, no talking heads allowed. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Turning The Public Into Performers With 'Street Pianos' "Play Me I'm Yours" is an art installation in New York by British artist Luke Jerram. It features 60 painted pianos in parks, on sidewalks and on street corners, left for anyone to play. Though they sometimes sit idly, the pianos occasionally inspire average people to become street musicians. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | FCC Eyes Broadband For Indian Reservations High-speed broadband is rarely available on rural reservations. Members of the Karuk tribe in Northern California say the lack of connectivity is dangerous during emergencies. The FCC is appointing a new liaison to help bring broadband to more tribes. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | More Asian-Americans Signing Up For The Army Asian-Americans have typically volunteered at the lowest rate of any ethnic group. But that seems to be changing. That could be in part because the U.S. isn't in a war with an Asian country. It also may be because they have more high-profile role models, like Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Abu Ghraib investigation. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Controversial Pesticide Worries Scientists In California, scientists are battling with state regulators over the use of pesticides to grow strawberries. Methyl bromide, which is currently used to fumigate the soil the berries are planted in, is being phased out because it damages the ozone layer. Its replacement, however, is carcinogenic. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Eminem Confronts His Inner Demons In 'Recovery' Throughout his career, the rapper's controversial work has attracted both criticism and accolades. He's won 11 Grammys and an Academy Award, and holds the record for the fastest-selling solo album in history. On his latest release Recovery, Eminem speaks candidly about his struggle with drug addiction and his newfound sobriety. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Where's The Cupcake Truck Today? Check Facebook In Denver, Sean Moore is known as "the cupcake guy." Each morning, he loads up a 1969 Ford Vanette with cupcakes made at a bakery he co-owns with his wife. Once he finds a parking spot, he tells his customers through social media sites where he is -- and how long he'll be there. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Execution By Firing Squad Will Be First In 14 Years In less than 1 hour, a five-man team of executioners is scheduled to take aim at death-row inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner, who has evaded the death chamber for 25 years. Thirty-five states allow the death penalty, but death by firing squad remains an option only in Utah. A Utah historian says the reason this method of execution exists is rooted in the state's history as a Mormon sanctuary. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Decade Of Alzheimer's Devastating Impact In 1999, Tom DeBaggio was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease. He was 57. Soon after the diagnosis, he began talking with NPR about his illness. He wanted to document his decline, to break through what he called the "shame and silence" of the disease. Now he can't talk, walk or feed himself. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | The Latest Kids' Craze: Rubber Bands Well, not quite. Silly Bandz are stretchy, colorful silicone bands that come in all different shapes. And kids around the country just have to have them. But why are they so popular? Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Sandy Denny: Mercurial Queen Of British Folk Rock Sandy Denny became the queen of British folk rock when she joined the band Fairport Convention in 1968. Her fans included Robert Plant and Nina Simone. Denny was a skilled songwriter with a powerful and expressive voice, yet today many people don't recognize her name. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | In Youth Hockey, 'Checking' Ups Risk Of Brain Injury Body checking -- or using your body to block another player -- is legal in professional hockey. But a new study finds it leads to higher rates of brain injury among youth players. Now the governing body for U.S. ice hockey is debating whether the game needs age restrictions for checking. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | High Art: Were Botticelli's Venus And Mars Stoned? A curious piece of fruit in the corner of a famous Renaissance painting has caught the eye of art historian David Bellingham. He suspects that 15th century master Sandro Botticelli depicted datura stramonium, a plant that's also known as "poor man's acid." Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | South Africa Celebrates Even Before First Game For the past three days, the soccer World Cup has drawn thousands to the streets -- 185,000 in Johannesburg to cheer the national team Wednesday, and more than that to attend and watch the simulcast of the kickoff concert Thursday night. The national team plays Mexico on Friday. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | More Workers Alleging Bias Against Caregivers There's no federal law that bans workplace discrimination against parents or people who care for elderly or disabled family members, but that hasn't prevented a surge of lawsuits from employees alleging unfair treatment. It's an increase of 400 percent in the past decade, says the Center for WorkLife Law. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Add It Up: Pricing Out A Visit To TV's 'Dr. House' The genius, if antisocial, protagonist of the Fox series House uses a barrage of cutting-edge tests and procedures to help diagnose his puzzling patients. But how much does that actually cost? We take a close look at one episode to find out. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Military Still Failing To Diagnose, Treat Brain Injuries The military medical system is failing to diagnose tens of thousands of soldiers who suffer brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan, an investigation by NPR and ProPublica finds. Brain trauma can cause lasting physical and cognitive damage, but the military continues to overlook the injury, and many soldiers receive little or no treatment. Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | A Happy Homecoming For Long-Lost Silent Films Seventy-five American silent films that were thought lost for more than 80 years are finally coming home. They were discovered in the vaults of The New Zealand Film Archive and include films by The Grapes of Wrath director John Ford and landmark female directors Mabel Normand and Lois Weber.