Author Jim Shepard writes what he knows, but also likes to write what he doesn't know. His novel Project X was about a Columbine-like school shooting from the perspective of one of the kids involved. His story Love and Hydrogen concerns a clandestine gay romance between two crew members of the Hindenburg.

John Dramani Mahama, vice president of the Republic of Ghana, recently visited the U.S. for a high-level meeting at the United Nations on HIV/AIDS.

As Tell Me More caught up with him, he explained that Ghana is one of the countries that have made significant progress in the fight against HIV/AIDs. "Since we launched our first national strategy plan and set up the Ghana AIDS commission, we have brought the prevalence rate down from nearly 4 percent to the current level of 1.5 percent," he said.

Host Michel Martin checks-in with NPR's Senior Washington Editor Ron Elving about developing stories in politics. They discuss which Congressional members are increasingly upset about the U.S. involvement in Libya, and why. They also talk about the impasse with the debt limit, and this past weekend's golf summit between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.

Being the U.S. President is a tough job. Impersonating the president is not easy either, especially when your prosthetic nose keeps falling off. Host Michel Martin speaks with two political impersonators. Larry Graves has studied President Obama's speeches and uses putty to get his ears to protrude. Bob Heck was an Elvis impersonator when he realized he could slightly alter his accent to match President Bill Clinton's twang.

The disaster at Japan's crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant underscores that "we need to systematically and regularly review the safety of all nuclear power plants" around the world, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said today.

This is the fourth in a series of posts whose central scientific point is stated as a conclusion, not a question like the title above. We seem, in the biosphere, to be beyond Newton, beyond Laplace, beyond Einstein, beyond Schrodinger, beyond Reductionism, and beyond Entailing Law.

If so, we must rethink our view of the world and our place in it.

If you haven't seen or heard about it, when NBC Sports began its coverage of the U.S. Open on Sunday it opened with one of those video montages that are meant to stir emotions.

It sure did.

By twice editing out the words "under God" from the audio of children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, the network sparked a firestorm of complaints on Twitter and caused enough of a protest that before the broadcast was over, the network's Dan Hicks was on the air apologizing.

About 40 cats and dogs that were displaced by severe storms in Alabama will soon be up for adoption in the Louisville area. The pets could not be reunited with their owners after tornadoes devastated Tuscaloosa and the surrounding area. The Humane Society collected the animals and is distributing them to various shelters. Locally, the Kentucky Humane Society and the New Albany/Floyd County Animal Shelter will be responsible for finding new homes for the animals.

The Louisville Metro council committee on Public Safety held a special meeting today that ended with the passage of a revised ordinance that allows the sale and use of fireworks within city limits. The ordinance was created to respond to a move by state lawmakers that made it legal to sell and ignite fireworks anywhere in Kentucky. The initial proposal in the council reinstated the ban, limiting the sale and use to only small grade novelties. However, amendments added by the county clerk’s office changed the ordinance to allow the sale of larger fireworks.

In a typical classroom, you can expect to find a couple of children with some sort of food allergy, according to a national survey of about 40,000 families.

Some 8 percent of kids, or about 1 in 13, are allergic to at least one food. That works out to 5.9 million kids in the U.S.

Among the kids with allergies, the most common foods causing problems are peanuts (25 percent), milk (21 percent) and shellfish (17 percent).