Top Stories Audio/Video - NPR

Rene Enriquez was once a leader in the Mexican mafia. He killed for the gang and ordered the deaths of many men and women. But after reaching the pinnacle of prison-gang life, he decided to leave and share information with the police.

Red Army soldiers trekked through China on their epic journey nearly 75 years ago. The daughter of an officer, Diane Zhang, follows the route on a quest to learn about the defining moment in her family's and China's history.

Tropical Storm Hanna is an uninvited player in this year's U.S. Open. Scott Simon talks with Weekend Edition's Howard Bryant about the men's semifinals, the women's finals and a look ahead to the week in baseball.

The Democratic and Republican national conventions got reporter Rachel Myrow thinking about political t-shirts. She wonders which party is selling more t-shirts this season as well as what clever — and inappropriate — things end up on them.

In the modern age of mega-stage spelling bees, there are still factions of what amount to advocates for spelling reform — those who want to simplify spellings or scrap the current alphabet all together.

Stephen Williams of the Antique Wine Company describes the new high-tech way to determine a wine's vintage.

Todd Domke, Republican analyst, and Dan Payne, Democratic analyst, discuss the political landscape — and how it looks after the close of both parties' national conventions.

Tropical Storm Hanna hit the East Coast along the North and South Carolina border on Saturday. It is expected to race north along the Eastern Seaboard, bringing heavy rain and flooding.

Barack Obama toured factories this week, trying to reach out to blue-collar voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the primaries.

GOP presidential nominee John McCain and his vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, campaign in swing states after leaving the Republican National Convention.

Picket lines went up early Saturday at Boeing airplane factories. As many as 27,000 machinists are on strike. With many airlines desperate to update their fleets, Boeing can ill-afford a protracted walkout.

The government is preparing to takeover mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times on Saturday. An announcement could come as early as this weekend.

In Pakistan, lawmakers will select the country's next president Saturday. Asif Ali Zardari is the frontrunner to succeed President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned under pressure last month. Zardari took over the Pakistan Peoples Party after his wife and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December.

Boeing's machinists have voted to strike, but also to return to the bargaining table for one last try. Boeing and the International Association of Machinists will have 48 hours to see if they can close the gap on pay, benefits and job security.

Barack Obama said the Republican convention's focus on John McCain's biography came at the expense of the struggles of the middle class. The comments came in a campaign appearance in Duryea, Pa., a day after McCain became the GOP presidential nominee.

Sen. John McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, cast themselves as reformers determined to challenge the political establishment. They appeared at a campaign stop in Cedarburg, Wis., a day after McCain accepted the Republican presidential nomination.

The Labor Department says that employers cut nearly 84,000 jobs in August. The unemployment rate for the month was a five-year high of 6.1 percent. Job losses in June and July were also found to be worse than previously believed.

Think the feminists who protested the 1968 Miss America pageant in the name of women's liberation burned their bras? Think again. No bras were set aflame that September day. But the idea that they were helped launch the movement onto the national stage.

With more flights filled to capacity, airline passengers are rediscovering the middle seat. Airplanes are now typically more than 80 percent full, and that can translate into a host of problems for travelers — including the possibility of getting bumped.

August was a bad month. Employers slashed 84,000 jobs and the unemployment rate hit a five-year high. We explore why this is particularly bad for female workers.

Tropical Storm Hanna has killed over a hundred people in Haiti, and thousands more are still displaced. Madeleine Brand talks to Louis Vigneault of UNICEF in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Sea levels could rise between 2.5 and 6 feet this century as a result of global warming, a new study reports. That estimate is lower than some widely circulated figures.

Forensic anthropologists are searching for the "disappeared" in Colombia — thousands of people killed by death squads and buried in unmarked graves. Many of the disappearances were not reported out of fear.

Fears about the global economy have flared up again, with worries starting in the United States and then infecting Asian markets. Nearly every stock index in Asia lost 2 percent to 3 percent of its value Friday, and European shares also started the trading day lower. The latest flight from financial markets was sparked by gloomy reports on U.S. retail sales and the U.S. labor market.

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a Washington, D.C., corruption scandal, was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison. According to the Washington Post, he told the judge he is no longer the person who "happily and arrogantly" engaged in a lifestyle of corruption. In fact, he's now a writer.

European foreign ministers open two days of talks Friday in southern France to discuss sending civilian monitors to Georgia. The aim is to convince Russia to remove its troops.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick has agreed to step down later this month and serve 120 days in a county jail as part of a plea deal. Kilpatrick's resignation ends an almost six-month fight to stay in office amid obstruction of justice charges. Thursday night, Kilpatrick made his first public speech to Detroiters after the plea bargain.

The stock market took another hit Thursday on bad economic news. All of the major indices were down. On Friday morning, investors awaited the government's latest jobs report.

John McCain accepted the GOP's presidential nomination in a nearly hour-long speech Thursday night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. McCain complimented rival Barack Obama for winning the Democratic nomination, but offered a long list of criticisms of the Illinois senator.

Determined not to let the Republicans get the entire spotlight, Barack Obama has been campaigning hard in swing states. On Thursday, he was in Pennsylvania, which Democrats have won in the past two presidential elections.

It was John McCain's night to shine Thursday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. In accepting the party's presidential nomination, McCain promised to work against constant partisan rancor and reach across party lines. McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin, aren't wasting any time and began the day campaigning in Wisconsin.

With the NFL season under way, the New England Patriots are asking fans, "Are you ready for some shopping?" Team owner Robert Kraft has built a huge new mall next to Gillette Stadium that costs as much as the stadium itself: more than $300 million.

Samak Sundaravej has had a 40-year career in Thailand's politics, but it's not clear whether he can ride out the country's latest political crisis.

In the wake of Russia's invasion of Georgia, Ukraine is in turmoil over a battle between the president and the prime minister. They disagree over how best to handle relations with Russia and the West.

John McCain, promising "change is coming" to Washington, accepted the Republican presidential nomination Thursday night, kicking off a fall campaign between two candidates who both pledge to upend the status quo in what may well remain a closely divided race until Election Day.

In her speech Thursday evening, Cindy McCain said the world is facing perilous times and Americans need to help each other. She calls her husband a "source of inspiration" who has "shown the value of self-sacrifice." And she describes her upbringing, her role as a mother and her world charity work.

Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff is sentenced to four years in prison for conspiracy in connection with a highly publicized public corruption case. The scandal involved a number of members of Congress, many of them Republicans, and contributed to several key election defeats in 2006.

Stocks have fallen Thursday amid worries about the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average fell by more than 300 points. The slump is stocks Thursday followed an unexpected increase in the number of jobless claims.

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Georgia Thursday signaling Washington's support for the former Soviet republic. In a statement, he decried what he called Russia's "illegitimate" attempt to redraw Georgia's borders by force.