Amid warnings the proposal would shatter support for the measure, Democrats backed away from a provision that would allow gay U.S. citizens to sponsor foreign-born spouses for green cards. Advocates for gay and lesbian immigration rights accused Democrats of caving in to threats.

A new documentary about writer George Plimpton uses its subject's own voice to tell the story of his career as a path-breaking "participatory journalist" and longtime editor of the Paris Review. The film also uses the voices of Plimpton's friends and colleagues to defend him against the charge of dilettantism that dogged him throughout his career. NPR's Joel Rose reports.

Despite much international criticism, Israel has continued building its West Bank barrier. It's now nearing completion, while the Israelis and Palestinians continue to argue over whether it will help or hurt prospects for a Middle East peace agreement.

Ironically, there's one piece of Web history that can't be found online: the very first page. Now, a team at the lab where the World Wide Web was born is on a hunt for old hard drives and floppy disks that might hold copies of the missing files.

Oklahomans who were hit by a massive tornado on Monday are trying to recover and rebuild.

A man was hacked to death in daylight near a military barracks in Woolwich. A local parliamentarian says the dead man was a British soldier. Media reports say two young men hit the victim in a car, then used a machete and butcher's knives to kill him in the street. One witness reportedly said the assailants stood around, waving knives and a gun, and asked people to film them. The government has called an urgent meeting of its crisis response committee.

Melissa Block talks to NPR Two-Way blogger Scott Neuman about why basements in Oklahoma are so uncommon.

This week, we're exploring how lessons learned from U.S. intervention and non-intervention in foreign conflicts can inform policy decisions toward Syria today. Robert Siegel talks with Chester Crocker, formerly assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Reagan administration, about how the U.S. has dealt with the decades-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has claimed millions of lives. Crocker is now a professor of strategic studies at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Los Angeles has elected a new mayor: Eric Garcetti, a longtime city council member and the son of the district attorney who prosecuted O.J. Simpson. The election Tuesday had a record-low voter turnout. Both Garcetti and his opponent, Wendy Gruel, had trouble getting voters excited.

Robert Siegel and Melissa Block read emails from listeners about reporting on the tornado in Moore, Okla.