U.S. News

Several high schools had to cancel their proms in 1963, during a time of tumultuous civil rights protests across the South, and in Birmingham, Ala., particularly. Fifty years later, some of those African-American students finally got the chance to dance the night away. Gigi Douban reports.

In this week's Sunday Conversation, host Rachel Martin speaks with Detective Sgt. Joe Matthews, who worked for decades on the Adam Welsh murder investigation in Florida. She will speak to him about how the case changed overtime, how it affected him personally and professionally, and how it feels to close a case that he worked on for so long.

Martha Brockenbrough, the founder of National Grammar Day and the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, tells host Rachel Martin about what she has referred to as an "apostrophe catastrophe." The U.S. Board on Geographic Names has a policy against possessive apostrophes in the names of places. The reason, The Wall Street Journal reports, is that the apostrophe quote implies private ownership of a public space.

Host Rachel Martin talks with Levis archivist Lynn Downey about the brand's 140th anniversary this month.

The IRS was in the hot seat Friday, with its outgoing acting commissioner testifying before a House committee. A Senate panel is scheduled for Tuesday. Congress is prodding to find out why the agency singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny.

Tesla Motors, the American maker of luxury electric cars, has been riding a wave of good publicity.

Its Model S sedan (base priced at $62,400, after federal tax credits) was just named Motor Trend Car of the Year. Reviewers at Consumer Reports gave the lithium-ion battery powered vehicle a rave.

And the company, headed by billionaire innovator Elon Musk, 41, posted a profit for the first time in its 10-year history — powered in part by zero-emission environmental credits.

University of New Hampshire professor Yitang Zhang announced this week that he has come close to solving a centuries-old problem: proving the twin prime conjecture. Host Scott Simon gets an explanation from Weekend Edition Math Guy Keith Devlin of Stanford University.

NPR's Scott Simon talks to Connie Schultz, former columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Starting this summer, the paper's owners will be reducing home delivery to three days a week and making huge cuts in the newsroom staff.

This week, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended lowering the legal limit of blood alcohol content for drivers to .05 or even lower. Currently, it's illegal to drive in all states with a BAC of .08 or higher. Host Scott Simon speaks with Dr. Anthony Liguori of Wake Forest School of Medicine about alcohol's impact on driving ability.

Six years ago, the FBI took on a challenge: To review what it called cold-case killings from the civil rights era. The investigation into 112 cases from the 1950s and 1960s is winding down, and civil rights activists are weighing the FBI's efforts.

The review comes with word this week of the death of a man who'd been named, by a newspaper investigation, as a possible suspect in one notorious case.

The Case

It's been a long slog already for the bipartisan immigration overhaul proposed by the Senate's Gang of Eight.

The legislation has been the target of more than 300 amendments during days of debate and votes by the Senate Judiciary Committee. But while the bill has largely held its own so far, its prospects for getting through Congress remain uncertain.

In Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy's view, the immigration overhaul is "moving very well."

"It's moving a lot faster than people said it would," says Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.

Two Metro-North Railroad trains have collided on a stretch of track near Fairfield, Conn., causing a "major derailment" and "preliminary reports of injuries," according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

[Update at 8:55 p.m. ET: The Associated Press quotes Connecticut officials as saying about 50 people have been hurt, four of them seriously.]

According to The Hartford Courant:

Of all the controversies swirling around the Obama White House, the Internal Revenue Service scandal seems likeliest to have the longest shelf life.

While the Benghazi affair has long been in the news, it's never really taken off as an issue beyond the Republican base.

When the American Psychiatric Association releases its new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- DSM-5 -- this weekend, lots of journalists and commentators will refer to it as "psychiatry's bible."

That's a term that makes the manual's authors and other mental experts cringe.

An unsolved triple murder in the Boston suburbs is getting a closer look in the wake of the marathon bombings. One of the victims may have been a friend of bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. That's prompting authorities to revisit the 2011 case.

The murders took place in Waltham, Mass. On Sept. 12, 2011, police responded to a house in the leafy suburb a few miles west of Boston.

The Portland Thorns women's soccer team drew 17,000 screaming fans to its recent home opener. That's a huge number and one that dwarfed turnout for the other seven teams in the new National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). The NWSL is the latest attempt to bring sustainable women's pro soccer to the U.S. Soccer federations in the U.S., Mexico and Canada help fund it. NPR's Tom Goldman examines how the Thorns and the NWSL have done so far.

The House Ways and Means Committee became the first oversight panel in Congress to weigh in on the IRS tax-exempt group controversy on Friday morning.

President Obama's first term was free from the kind of scandal that consumes every ounce of political oxygen in Washington. Now, in light of a trio of controversies, his supporters find themselves in the uncomfortable and unaccustomed position of having to defend some hard-to-defend events.

Democrats have offered up a range of responses. They view the issues — Benghazi, the IRS and the Justice Department snooping on The Associated Press — as separate issues that shouldn't be lumped together.

The Illinois Senate has approved a measure to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes, sending the bill to the governor for his signature.

The bill would be the strictest in the nation. According to The Chicago Tribune:

The tragic deaths of 29 coal miners in a massive explosion in 2010 have provided new evidence of a resurgence of the disease known as black lung.

There's a lot to love about biking to work: the exercise, the fresh air, the cost savings and the benefits for the environment.

But does it make you healthier?

That's a question that's not as easy to answer as you might think. But since today is Bike to Work Day, we'll give it a try.

The Justice Department has been scrutinized this week for secretly obtaining phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors while investigating the disclosure of a CIA operation to thwart a terrorist attack. Steve Inskeep talks to Floyd Abrams, a leading First Amendment lawyer, about how the Constitution and the law treat press freedom.

The manager of the sexual-assault response program at Fort Campbell, Ky., has been arrested in a domestic dispute and has been relieved of his post.

The Associated Press reports:

Members of a bipartisan group of House lawmakers say they've overcome disagreements and have reached a tentative deal to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

Eight Democratic and Republican House members left a two-hour closed-door meeting Thursday evening, saying they would be working on drafting the measure, The Associated Press reports.

"We have an agreement in principle. We're now going to work on finishing up the drafting of the bill," said Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, a member of the group.