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Before this week is over, jurors in Michael Jackson's trial could be deliberating his guilt or innocence. But those 12 people are hardly the only ones in the country who will be talking about Michael Jackson. Just about everybody else is, too. Commentator Jake Halpern is working on a book about fame, and he says that all that attention might be part of Michael Jackson's problems.

At the famous Fetish Market in Lome, Togo, traditional remedies and magical talismans compete with modern medicine for Africans looking to cure illness -- and also find love or cast a spell.

The Air Force Academy says it is taking measures to address concerns that Evangelical Christians exercise too much influence at the school and are trying to force their religion on others.

British voters go to the polls Thursday in an election that Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party is expected to win. Voters appear ready to back a third Blair term despite anger at his government's support for the Iraq war.

Robert Siegel talks with French-born pianist Helene Grimaud about themes of death and transcendence in the work of Frederic Chopin and Sergei Rachmaninov. Grimaud explores their work in a new recording.

The House and Senate have been unable to reconcile differences over a supplemental spending bill, largely because of disagreements over a House-sponsored amendment aimed at curbing illegal immigration. The debate within the Republican Party is a prelude to a broader discussion still to come.

Partisan tensions in the House of Representatives appear to have reached a new high. Lawmakers spent hours Tuesday night debating the fallout from a parental-consent bill passed last week. Democrats accused the Republican majority of deliberately misrepresenting amendments offered at a committee voting session on the measure.

Writer Philip Caputo returns to Kent State University, 35 years after he covered the shootings there as a young Chicago Tribune reporter. His new book, Thirteen Seconds, searches for meaning in the violence.

The Federal Reserve again has boosted the cost of borrowing for millions of consumers by raising short-term interest rates. The quarter-point hike -- the eighth since June 2004 -- bumps a key bank lending rate to 3 percent.

Campaigning for Thursday's national election in Britain has proven particularly contentious in areas such as East London's Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, where the Iraq war is a key issue.

The home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner was rededicated this weekend in Oxford, Miss. Rowan Oak, which underwent a $1.3 million restoration, draws more than 20,000 literary pilgrims each year.

The sentencing phase of Army Pfc. Lynndie England's court martial begins. She testified Monday that she was not coerced into abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib, and she pleaded guilty to most of the charges against her.

Slate human guinea pig Emily Yoffe goes head-to-head with a world-famous competitive eating champion, as she competes in this year's matzo ball-eating contest in New York City.

The first dominant big man of professional basketball has died. Basketball Hall of Famer George Mikan, who led the Minneapolis Lakers to five championships, was 80. Melissa Block talks to Tom Heinsohn, currently a commentator for Boston Celtics broadcasts and a former NBA All-Star player and coach.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 33 reports that Toyota's popular hybrid cars have stalled without warning. Toyota has also started its own inquiry into the Prius.

In Southern Sudan, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is no longer a rebel group. Under a peace deal signed earlier this year to end Sudan's 22-year civil war, the former rebels will run the south of the country as a semi-autonomous province -- and must make the transition from guerrilla movement to government.

Alex Chadwick talks with filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke and documentarian and former star skateboarder Stacey Peralta about their new film Lords of Dogtown. The movie explores the origins of the skateboarding movement in the Los Angeles beach town of Venice in the 1970s, and the impact of instant fame on the skaters involved -- including Peralta.

Psychologist and author Kay Redfield Jamison has firsthand knowledge of mental illness. She believes her own battle with manic depression has made her a better teacher and a more empathetic person.

The leader of the World Health Organization says he doesn't think that a 'zero-COVID' strategy is sustainable, given the behavior of the virus.

Volker Schlondorff is an Academy Award-winning German filmmaker who has focused on many aspects of German culture and history, but vowed never to make a movie about concentration camps -- until now. The Ninth Day tells the story of a priest who is torn between what is best for the church and his people.

Desperate to reach a more mobile audience, some newspapers are turning to podcasting. A growing number now offer Internet radio programs, sending stories from their pages to iPods and other players.

America's prisons are bursting at the seams with drug offenders. But the so-called "war on drugs" appears to have had little effect on the price and availability of illicit substances. Though drug use among whites is on par with blacks, African Americans account for nearly 60 percent of all U.S. drug convictions. For a closer look at what needs to be done to fight a fair and effective "war on drugs," Ed Gordon speaks with John Walters, director of the National Office of Drug Control Policy -- the nation's "drug czar.'

Karen Grigsby Bates tours the South Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts with journalist Karl Fleming, who was nearly beaten to death during a racial protest in the summer of 1966. Fleming's new book details his time reporting on the civil rights movement during the turbulent 1960s.

Tim Winter is executive director of the Parents Television Council, a watchdog group that speaks out against sex, violence, and profanity in the media.

The man who leaked the Pentagon Papers told NPR it's obvious why the Supreme Court wants to keep their process secret: "No organization really wants to show how the sausage is made."