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Former Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois was charged Friday with conspiring with an unnamed person to illegally spend campaign funds.

As Politico reports, some of that money was spent on buying a $43,000 Rolex watch, "fur coats and memorabilia associated with Michael Jackson, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Bruce Lee."

Politico adds:

Richard Kessinger loves to hit the gym. But some days he needs a little something to get him pumped up for his weightlifting routine.

"You might be a little bit sore. You might be tired. You might have had too many beers the day before," says Kessinger, 23, of Arlington, Va. "So you might start putting up a set and you get a few reps in and you're like, 'I'm not feeling this. I can't keep going.' "

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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel. President Obama was in Chicago today, promoting what he calls ladders of opportunity to the middle class. It's the latest stop of his post-State of the Union tour, fleshing out the proposals from Tuesday night's speech. At a high school near his southside Chicago home, the president said reducing urban gun violence is essential to economic development.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel. And we're going to hear now about Prisoner X, a man who was held in Israel under a false name and who committed suicide in 2010. Israel continues to cite its secrecy laws to justify withholding most details about the case, but thanks to media in other countries, we now know that Prisoner X was an Australian-Israeli.

The two hulking rocks hurtling toward Earth today seem to have caught Congress' attention: Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, a Republican from Texas, is calling for a Congressional hearing on what we can do to protect our planet from asteroids.

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This is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. It is Presidents Day, a day we celebrate the nation's presidents, and for many people it's a day off: a day to spend time with friends and family.