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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Now we turn to a scathing report on expensive conferences held by the IRS. The report by the agency's own inspector general noted the IRS spent about $50 million on employee meetings between 2010 and 2012.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: Some of the most egregious examples of questionable spending occurred at a 2010 gathering in Southern California. The IRS paid dearly for some lavish hotel rooms, and spent $34,000 for lodging and related expenses for employees who lived nearby.

With Spain's economy in shreds, the country is doing a lot of finger-pointing about who was at fault and where all the money has gone. The latest suspects: the Spanish royal family.

The reputation of the current Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was seemingly cemented one day 32 years ago when armed civil guard officers stormed the Spanish Parliament, holding lawmakers hostage in an attempted coup.

The king went on live TV, denouncing the officers.

"The crown cannot tolerate any action that interrupts the strength of the democratic process," he said.

NPR's Uri Berliner is taking $5,000 of his own savings and putting it to work. Though he's no financial whiz or guru, he's exploring different types of investments — alternatives that may fare better than staying in a savings account that's not keeping up with inflation.

When my old pal the Sports Curmudgeon had some mildly churlish things to say about golf a few weeks ago, both he and I were upbraided by loyal linksters. As one snapped at me, "You don't know anything about golf."

Perhaps.

But I know all about golf propaganda.

The American combat mission in Afghanistan will end in 2014. One concern for U.S. officials is the possibility that Afghan security forces will splinter along ethnic lines. The worry then is that those troops will start taking orders from warlords.

Friday is National Doughnut Day. You might want to try Dunkin' Donuts latest creation: bacon and egg between a glazed doughnut.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Good morning, I'm Renee Montagne.

German spelling bees are about to get easier. The language's longest word has been retired. Its 63 letters long so we'll let YouTube's words German channel say it.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Rindfleischetikettierungsuberwachungsaufgabenubertragungsgesetz.

MONTAGNE: One word, the definition: A law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labeling of beef. The law is outdated, so officials are saying auf wiedersehen.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Things are not going do well for the online game maker Zynga. The once high-flying gaming company has been struggling and now plans to lay off almost 20 percent of its staff; that's more than 500 employees.

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Lawyers for Apple will be back in court today, defending the company against government charges that it conspired with publishers to fix eBook prices. All the major publishing houses settled months ago with the Justice Department.

But as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, Apple's lawyer told the court the company won't settle because it did nothing wrong.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Jell-O is jiggling up the Twitter-verse.

NPR's Travis Larchuk reports the wholesome brand has an edgy new social media campaign.

TRAVIS LARCHUK, BYLINE: Jell-O's classic commercials end on these five letters...

(SOUNDBITE OF JINGLE)

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) J-E-L-L-O!

LARCHUK: But on Twitter, the company's pared it down to just three letters, F-M-L.

A divided Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Monday that it's constitutional for police to take DNA swabs from suspects who are arrested but not yet convicted of a crime. The court compared such DNA sampling to fingerprinting when a suspect is booked.

Every day in hospitals all over America, thousands of patients die of infections that used to be curable. But the antibiotics used to treat them aren't working anymore.

It's called drug resistance, and it's largely a consequence of antibiotics overuse. The more germs are exposed to antibiotics, the faster they mutate to evade being vanquished.

You might think African-Americans might be more pessimistic about their lives. The housing crisis decimated pockets of black wealth. The black unemployment rate has been nearly double the national average for several years.

But according to findings from our survey of more than 1,000 African-Americans, you'd be wrong.

Karen and Colin Rodger already had two sets of boys. When Mom got pregnant this time, the thought of more twins crossed her mind, but a doctor said the odds were 500,000 to 1. Now she's given birth to twin girls, and the family tells the Daily Mirror it's shopping for a van.

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST: