* Law providing American women with access to preventive health services goes into effect today. * Arizona's new abortion law could force mothers to birth stillborns and babies with fatal defects. * Late-term abortion legislation fails in DC. * Obama's newest campaign slogan attacked for an alleged punctuation error.
* Gore Vidal dies at 86. * Vidal in conversation with his literary executor on influence, American education, Palin, the Bill of Rights. * Electricity and material benefits legitimizes dictatorship while Indian politicians ignore basic life needs. * Life for Syrians is little improved on entering refugee camps in Turkey's Siberia. * Scientists
* If you live in America, you are four times more likely to be murdered than if you live in Britain. * Obama's winning on messages, but Romney's talking points are Americans' hot-button issues, Gallup shows. * Jonah Lehrer’s deceptions. * The 2012 Olympics gold medals are
* 600 million without power in India. * Daily life becomes a tale of survival as Aleppo fight continues in Syria, sparking a refugee crisis. * Syrian rebels explain why they left the Free Syrian Army to fight with al Qaeda against Assad. * Drone pilots talk about their day job. * Promises of free
America’s funeral parlors rely on one man to provide the theme music for your grandmother’s memorial service, the pop radio for your cousin’s wake. Welcome to “semi-spiritual” ambient music and the stuff of contemporary mourning.
* Photographers on shooting violence. * How primate behavior and socialization can explain gun violence. * The five most potentially habitable alien planets. * Q&A with a programmer who hopes to direct a movie before he loses his eyesight. * The healthiest fat in your body is in the back of your neck,
Olympic tennis takes some getting used to. Usually tennis players compete for no one other than themselves, and so fan alliance concurs. We attend primarily to see who we like, not just who’s from home, so patriotic rooting can be a readjustment. Add to this an Olympic crowd at
* President Romney will find it hard to cut spending; President Obama will struggle to increase it any further. * How to hide your money off-shore. * Life in the town of Wolfeboro, NH, where Romney vacations. * Growing up black in Jackson, Miss. * List of the most important American painters to emerge
Today we're launching a new series of contemporary Russian literature, with six stories in six months, including interviews with their authors, sponsored by Powells.com. Will one of them blow your mind? We begin with the "Queen of Russian Horror."
* The "nocebo effect"—being told a harmless substance is harmful—can be strong enough to kill. * On contemporary experiments in LSD, including "micro-dosing." * Jad Abrumad revisits Radiolab's origin story. * Geneticists say a cousin of the Neanderthals coexisted with modern humans and bred with
