Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had some tough words for China today — amid a crackdown on dissent there.

She unveiled the department's 35th annual human-rights report saying the struggle for human rights begins by telling the truth — and in China that means highlighting the plight of political prisoners, who are growing in number.

As he was putting the final touches on this year's human-rights report, the State Department's point person on the issue, Michael Posner, said that China is the country that keeps him awake at night.

We can't dismiss the serious side of a potential shutdown of much of the federal government at midnight tonight. But there is some fun being had on Twitter.

Check the trending topic #govtshutdownpickuplines (fair warning, some are "adult-only"). A few examples:

University of Colorado President Bruce Benson is recommending that the Boulder campus move forward with plans to revamp its journalism school.

Benson said he came to the decision after meeting with Chancellor Phil DiStefano, students, faculty, advisory board members and Colorado journalists. While the ultimate goal is to strengthen journalism education, the current plan requires the discontinuation of the journalism school itself.

It’s a term that’s raised alarm bells for many students and faculty.

In Tunisia, a transitional government is in the midst of tackling predictable challenges like how to agree on a constitution and how to organize an election.

But there's another problem the government faces: the state of the economy.

In the warrens of the medina — the old city of Tunis — merchants in their covered stalls, packed with every sort of merchandise, know that tourists may avoid a country that's working its way through a largely peaceful revolution, with an occasional protest that turns violent. And they're not happy about it.

On April 12, 1861, the first shots of the Civil War rang out in South Carolina.

Confederate forces, firing on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, helped launch a four-year war that would kill more than 620,000 soldiers.

It's been nearly 150 years since the war began. But even now, the city of Charleston is still figuring out how to talk about the war and commemorate the anniversary.

Defending The Confederate Story

Juliano Mer Khamis, a Palestinian and Israeli actor and director, was killed this week outside the theater and school he directed in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The 52-year-old was born to an Israeli Jewish mother and Palestinian Christian father. His life's work used art to teach Israelis and Palestinians about each other, and encourage Palestinian resistance through his Freedom Theatre in Jenin.

"With just hours to go before a midnight deadline for a partial government shutdown, Democratic and Republican leaders couldn't even agree Friday over exactly what the sticking points were," our colleague Scott Neuman writes in the latest NPR.org story about the wrangling over the federal budget.

With a shutdown of the federal government looming,  Colorado Senator Mark Udall has introduced legislation that he says aims to prevent either party from using a threat of a government shutdown to push its agenda. 

After a compromise was reached on the state budget - education cuts and other cost-saving measures are now being debated by the Colorado Senate. It's what our media partners at Colorado Inside Out are talking about.

When Michelle Elaine Astumian, who had been convicted of forging prescriptions and writing fraudulent checks, showed up for sentencing last week at a court in California's San Luis Obispo County, she brought along a note.

She said her doctor had signed a request that sentencing be delayed so that she should could get medical treatment.

Prosecutors quickly figured out, by calling the doctor, that the note was a fake.