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President Barack Obama hosted two gatherings at the White House Monday: first the National Governors Association and then the president's own Fiscal Responsibility Summit. Both meetings were largely about the state of the economy and its effect on government spending and revenues.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday that he didn't see why bank nationalization would be necessary. David Wessel of The Wall Street Journal talks with Renee Montagne about what nationalization means.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell Monday more than 3 percent, slipping below 7,000 for the first time since 1997. The markets are reacting to a variety of negative reports, everything from AIG's losses to Warren Buffett's comments over the weekend.

The White House this week turns its attention to a sweeping policy review on health care. President Obama will host a White House summit later this week on the health care system. On Monday, he nominated Kathleen Sebelius, the Democratic governor of Kansas, as his new secretary of health and human services.

Barack Hussein Obama has been sworn into office as the 44th president of the United States. A crowd that stretched for more than 2 miles on the National Mall came to listen and watch Obama.

Crowds tightly packed the space around the inaugural stage — forming a long ribbon of people all the way to the Lincoln Memorial at the other end of the National Mall. Most of them, if they were lucky, got to see President Obama's inauguration on one of a number of Jumbotrons.

New data suggest the housing crisis is far from over. The number of homes breaking ground last year was at its lowest level in 50 years. The Federal Housing Finance Agency shows prices are dropping rapidly and a survey of builders released Wednesday shows there is no optimism there, either.

The new movie Coraline is the story of a little girl who follows a secret passage into an alternate universe. It is the first stop-motion animated film to be conceived and shot in 3-D.

Author John Updike, the relentless chronicler of postwar America, has died. He was 76. Updike is best known for his four Rabbit novels. Updike also contributed stories, essays, poems and book reviews to The New Yorker. David Remnick, the magazine's editor, talks to Renee Montagne about how Updike will be remembered.

Melissa Block talks to regular political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution and David Brooks of The New York Times. They discuss Mitt Romney's decision to not run for president in 2016, the Koch brothers' plan to spend nearly $900 million dollars on campaigns and next week's budget proposal.

In an exclusive interview with NPR, Foreign Minister Hector Timerman says he met Iranian officials as part of the effort to find out who was behind the 1994 bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center.

President Trump has waived the move of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — at least for now, according to the White House. Moving the embassy had been a key campaign promise.

One of the country's strictest voter ID laws violates the Voting Rights Act, according to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. It says the Texas law discriminates against the state's minority voters.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is reasserting his control following a failed military coup with widespread purges of the country's institutions.

Rachel Martin speaks with Philip Mudd, a former CIA counterintelligence official and a senior FBI intelligence adviser, about former FBI Director James Comey's testimony Thursday.

David Greene talks to Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who has called on Facebook's CEO to testify before Congress about the misuse of millions of users' private information.

David Greene talks to Republican data strategist Luke Thompson about how political campaigns use voter data, and how Cambridge Analytica could have influenced the 2016 election.

Rachel Martin talks to Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado about his reaction to President Trump agreeing to meet North Korea's leader. The invitation was facilitated by South Korean diplomats.

In the northern Indian city of Varanasi or Benaras, a religious dispute is threatening the city's interfaith harmony.

Hurricane Idalia walloped Perry when it stormed ashore with 125 mph winds on Wednesday. People in the city are just now trying to pick up pieces and sort out how to move forward.

As Alice Carrière entered her teen years, her brain started to splinter into a dissociative disorder. Year later, that extraordinary childhood is the basis for her new memoir.

In everyday medical care, the practice of reflection is too often overlooked. Remembrance is what makes us human. Keeping tabs on who has died over the years keeps one doctor humble.

A look at the divide among Asian Americans over affirmative action.

The decision was the latest to strike down new congressional maps in Southern states over concerns that they diluted the voting power of Black residents.

Investigations into Russia and the election, hearings on Neil Gorsuch, and the defeat of the GOP health plan were the big political stories of the week.