State and National News

Among the biggest advertisers in the presidential campaign is a group that says it doesn't do political advertising: Crossroads GPS.

Crossroads GPS — which stands for Grassroots Policy Strategies — was co-founded by Republican strategist Karl Rove. It and others like it enable wealthy donors to finance attack ads while avoiding the public identification they would face if they gave to more overtly political committees.

Robert Siegel talks to sportswriter Stefan Fatsis the U.S. men's and women's soccer teams.

Former NBA star Jack Twyman has died at the age of 78. Twyman played for the Rochester and Cincinnati Royals in the 1950s and 60s. But it was his friendship and assistance to an injured teammate that earned him the most recognition.

The sputtering U.S. economy isn't just bad news for America, it's a drag on the global economic outlook as well.

"What matters to the rest of the world is the amount of demand the United States is going to generate," says economist Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell.

"Weak job growth translates to weak domestic demand in the U.S., and that concerns all of the U.S.'s major trading partners," he says.

Cancer is everywhere.

And, before long, cancer will be a major cause of death in every part of the world, not just a big factor in what's now the developed world.

In 2030 the world's population is expected to hit 8.3 billion, up from 7 billion today. By then, new cases of cancer cases are expected to nearly double to 20.3 million from 12.8 million in 2008, according to an analysis in The Lancet Oncology.

In just a few weeks, a decision is expected from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of President Obama's health care law. Some legal analysts expect the justices to strike down the law, or at least the controversial individual mandate. And whatever the court decides, it could come in a 5-4 decision.

A few of these analysts discussed the implications of a split decision in this high-profile case with NPR's Neal Conan Thursday on Talk of the Nation.

From the day a grand jury indicted former Sen. John Edwards on six felony charges nearly one year ago, the case drew jeers from election lawyers and government watchdogs.

"It was an incredibly aggressive prosecution because it was based on a novel theory of the law," says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "There was literally no precedent. No case had ever been like this."

As the world considers the possible death of the euro, it's worth considering a famous historical example. Ok, it's not that famous. But it's still worth looking at: The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian currency union in 1918.

Just as the countries of Europe today share the euro, the Austrian empire and the Kingdom of Hungary had created a shared currency: the Austro-Hungarian crown.

After World War I, the region broke up. All of a sudden there were lots of countries wanting to switch to their own currencies.