State and National News

There is some evidence to suggest that citizens monitoring their communities can reduce crime. But the Trayvon Martin shooting focused new attention on neighborhood watch programs. Many neighborhoods have them, but the Martin case has brought questions about what they can and can't do to the fore.

In 2011, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction banning Los Angeles police from confiscating and destroying the belongings of homeless people on Skid Row. In the Los Angeles Times, Carol Schatz argues that the ruling, intended to protect the homeless, puts them in greater danger.

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During the course of his career, singer-songwriter Adam Cohen says he has twisted himself into creating commercially successful music — but not this record, not this song. "What Other Guy," from his third album Like A Man, didn't seem likely to generate mainstream popularity. And yet it did, more than any other song he has ever recorded.

The son of iconic singer Leonard Cohen, Adam Cohen says his latest record is a celebration and demonstration of his father's influence on his music.

Idan Raichel is one of Israel's top-selling pop musicians. Vieux Farka Toure is a virtuoso guitarist from Mali. The two met by chance in a German airport, and when Toure played a concert in Tel Aviv, Raichel sat in. He enjoyed himself so much that he invited Toure and two other musicians to come to a studio the next day and jam. The music they created is now an album called The Tel Aviv Session.

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Weekend Edition food commentator Bonny Wolf is trying to understand if the glass is half-full or half-empty when it comes to arguments for and against raw, unpasteurized milk.

I first drank raw milk two years ago, at a dinner given by a college anthropology class in Maryland. The professor, whose three small children drink only raw milk, had to go to Pennsylvania to get it since it's illegal to sell it in Maryland.

I felt a slight thrill of danger before my first sip because, according to the federal government, drinking raw milk is a very bad idea.

The special prosecutor investigating the Feb. 26 shooting death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin announced this morning she will not be taking the case to a grand jury this week.