NPR News

Transcript

ARUN RATH, HOST:

NSA surveillance appears to have damaged America's reputation abroad, but the U.S. government is hoping that one person can turn it around. Rosanne Cash.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAND OF DREAMS")

ROSANNE CASH: (Singing) I heard you calling from the start. A river...

The mayor of Hoboken, N.J., says the administration of Gov. Chris Christie told her if she did not back a local development deal, her city would not receive the aid she asked for to rebuild after Super Storm Sandy.

Dawn Zimmer, a Democrat, made the comments about the Republican administration in an interview with MSNBC on Saturday.

The roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis was deflated one last time this morning.

Thirty-one years worth of history were symbolically released in 35 minutes, after officials from the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority opened the vents and turned off the fans:

In the quest for new treatments, U.S. researchers are looking to traditional Chinese medicines, some of the oldest remedies in the world.

There's a lot that's over the top about "The Wolf of Wall Street," the Oscar-nominated film that's up for best pictures. Including the side dishes.

A bill introduced in the Missouri Statehouse adds a firing squad as an option for carrying out the death penalty in the state.

The bill would give the state another option besides lethal gas and lethal injection, which has run into speed bumps because pharmaceutical companies have halted the sale of one of the drugs used in those executions.

The Western-backed umbrella group of Syrian rebels has voted to attend peace talks with the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad in the Swiss city of Montreux.

The National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces made the announcement on Twitter on Saturday after a vote held in Istanbul, Turkey.

Almost all Egyptians who turned out to vote last week approved a new constitution, Egypt's Supreme Electoral Committee said on Saturday, according to the state-owned newspaper Al Ahram.

The newspaper reports that 38.6 percent of registered voters went to the polls and 98.1 percent of them voted in favor of the new constitution in the first vote since Mohammed Morsi was toppled in a 2013 coup.

After a week of fighting between civilian militias, drug traffickers and federal forces, there is a tense calm in the western Mexico state of Michoacan.

It's been the site of clashes between civilian militias defending themselves from ruthless drug traffickers, and federal forces trying to regain control.

For now, businesses are slowly reopening, school will restart on Monday, and the militias who took up arms have put down their weapons. It's unclear how long this fragile peace will last.

India is reeling after the death of Sunanda Pushkar, the wife of government minister Shashi Tharoor. As NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from New Delhi, Tharoor, who was a United Nations official for years, and his wife had been at the center of a social media scandal that grabbed national headlines.

Julie filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Tharoor, the flamboyant diplomat turned politician, found his wife Pushkar dead in a room at a luxury hotel in Delhi.

"The cause of death is under investigation.