All Things Considered

The newest album from the folk outfit Lost in the Trees is a very personal one. Ari Picker, the creative force behind the band, began writing the songs for A Church That Fits Our Needs after the death of his mother, Karen Shelton. She was an artist herself, one who struggled with mental illness throughout her life. In 2008, she killed herself.

Dick Cheney, 71, was in a Virginia hospital following a heart transplant Saturday. Host Laura Sullivan talks with NPR's Rob Stein about the former vice president's health.

In Round 8 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest, listeners were given this challenge: Begin a story with this sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door." And, as always, the story must be 600 words or less. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday.

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum released what may be the hardest-hitting ad of the 2012 campaign. "Welcome to Obamaville," shot and scored like a trailer for a Hollywood horror film, features a split-second flash of President Obama's face superimposed over the image of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Guest host Laura Sullivan speaks to NPR's David Folkenflik about the ad.

The MF Life is the second album by R&B singer Melanie Fiona, released this past week. The two-time Grammy winner says the title has sparked a lot of discussion.

"It gets people talking to each other," Fiona says. "I wanted it to be a collection of music and songs that make people think about the things that we actually go through and feel, and to acknowledge that — to know that there's someone out there singing their story, as well."

This is the second of two stories we're doing today about Harrisburg. Read the first story here.

Harrisburg is broke.

The Pennsylvania city is deep in debt. It's still spending more than it takes in. And, as David Unkovic described it to me last week, there's a cash-flow problem.

If you know the actress and comedian Niecy Nash, you're probably either excited about her new reality show, Leave It To Niecy, or you're cringing just thinking about it. Nash does not do things halfway. Her new show starts Sunday, and it's intended to be something like a real-life Modern Family.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — the health care overhaul law that President Obama championed and Republicans rejected — turns two on Friday.

The law is headed to the Supreme Court on Monday, where the Justices begin hearing three days of arguments about the constitutionality of the law. Ahead of the big day, we asked for questions from our audiences online and on air. Here's a sampling of questions, edited for clarity and length, and the answers.

Hungry for a good dystopia? Well, as you may be gathering from reports of the millions of tickets sold before prints were even shipped to theaters, author Suzanne Collins has a feast for you in the first movie installment of her young-adult trilogy The Hunger Games.

The second day of President Obama's all-of-the-above energy tour brought him to Oklahoma.

The Senate again tried to add some investor protections to the JOBS bill, which otherwise would remove SEC oversight from companies with as big as $1 billion in sales that are going public.

Two entrepreneurs who changed American breakfasts have died. Robert Siegel talks about Sam Glazer, a co-founder of the Mr. Coffee company and Murray Lender, who helped make Lender's Bagels a household name.

The popular website Pinterest allows millions of users to "pin" digital images and share virtual bulletin boards. But it's raising suspicions about potential copyright infringement. Audie Cornish talks to attorney Jonathan Pink — who heads the Internet and New Media Team at the law firm Bryan Cave — about who owns what online.

French police have been trying to get a suspected gunman to surrender, after he apparently changed his mind about turning himself in. The 24-year-old has confessed to killing the Jewish children and the paratrooper in Toulouse. Explosions have been reported near the apartment. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley tells host Robert Siegel the latest developments.

For the first time, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that defendants have a constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel in plea bargains. In a 5-4 decision Wednesday, the court went further, declaring that when a lawyer acts unethically or gives clearly wrong advice, the defendant may be entitled to a second chance at accepting a plea offer.

Mitt Romney's senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom sparked mockery and attacks from Romney's rivals with a comment made in an interview Wednesday morning. Fehrnstrom said Romney would move away from his conservative positions advanced during the primaries by hitting the "reset button," almost like an "Etch a Sketch." The comment underscored Romney's reputation for changing his position on important issues. Robert Siegel talks with Ari Shapiro.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in two murder cases testing whether it is unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a 14-year-old to life in prison without the possibility of parole. There are currently 79 people serving such life terms for crimes committed when they were 14 or younger.