Many organizations, including the Gates Foundation, support our work. But they don't get to set the agenda.

In the wake of Arizona's botched execution, Steve Inskeep talks with Amherst professor Austin Sarat, author of the recent book Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty.

Authorities want to cut down on cigarette butts in the sand, so they're moving to ban smoking on all 362 miles of the state's Pacific Coast. Repeat offenders could face a $110 fine.

Steve Inskeep talks with Honduran Foreign Minister Mireya Aguero de Corrales, who's in Washington to help find a solution to the thousands of Central American children arriving at the U.S. border.

One of the most conservative members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Scott DesJarlais, is defending his seat against state Sen. Jim Tracy, who is making the most of the incumbent's personal scandals.

The city cut off water to thousands of households with overdue bills topping $90 million. The animal rights organization stepped in, offering to pay 10 residents' bills if they go vegan for a month.

The Common Core State Standards in literacy and math have generated lots of attention and controversy, but what do they look and sound like in a classroom?

Massachusetts is offering to house hundreds of unaccompanied minors who've been detained crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. One of the proposed sites is on Cape Cod, but residents are blasting the plan.

Sen. John Walsh of Montana was appointed to his seat, and he's preparing to face voters for the first time. The Democrat's bid will be complicated by plagiarism allegations.

The deal follows a Justice Department report released in April that showed the city's police used excessive force in dealing with many suspects.

Many kids and teenagers leave Central America to avoid climbing levels of gang violence, extortion and drug trafficking. Sometimes, it's to find their families.

An hour into Wednesday's botched execution in Arizona, an attorney for the inmate reached out to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy seeking his intervention. How do such appeals work? And how often do they happen?

Activists against the death penalty are seizing on a botched execution in Arizona Wednesday. Witnesses say that death row inmate Joseph Rudolph Wood gasped for air, taking nearly two hours to die by lethal injection.