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John Powers, Fresh Air critic at large, weighs in on the trends of 2007: political campaigns, Iraq movies failing at the box office, HBO's The Sopranos, stories about hitting the road, the TMZing of America, jocks gone wild, hip sentimentality, the nightly ideological news, atheist chic and the writers strike.

Catch up on key developments and the latest in-depth coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence operatives captured the Taliban's second-in-command. Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar effectively ran the organization, U.S. officials say, directing Taliban military strategy in Afghanistan and controlling the group's finances.

Robert Siegel sits down with a group of students from Tel Aviv University for a conversation about their expectations for the future. The students are politically divided, but they agree that their main concern, even more than security, is the Israeli economy.

Pest control company Orkin says Chicago earned the top spot on its annual list of America's "rattiest" cities — beating out Los Angeles and New York, which came in second and third respectively.

The number of Democrats citing abortion rights as a top priority for the federal government to address jumped from less than 1% in 2021 to 13% in a new poll.

In the liner notes to his 2012 trio album Accelerando, the pianist and composer Vijay Iyer wrote: "[T]his album is in the lineage of American creative music based on dance rhythms." Dancing in rhythm and exemplifying creativity, here are 10 records which belong to that great lineage.

West Virginia will soon hold its annual Liars Contest. Last year, college professor Adam Booth won. He's been a contender five times according to West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

The Communist Party chooses 59-year-old Hu Jintao as its new general secretary, in effect taking the helm of the world's most populous nation. Hu is not expected to stray far from the path of outgoing President Jiang Zemin, who has pushed economic but not political reform. Hear more from NPR's Rob Gifford.

Rick Spinrad previously served as the agency's top scientist. His nomination comes at a difficult period for NOAA, which spent the Trump administration mired in scandal and without a permanent leader.