NPR News

The federal government's mounting debt is often blamed on a failure of leadership. But the leaders may not be the only ones at fault.

As unhappy as Americans claim to be about the government's red ink, surveys show most voters want more government than they're willing to pay for.

If We Build It, Who Will Pay?

Even as he proposes budget cuts in some areas, President Obama wants to spend more federal money to update and improve the country's overstretched roads and bridges.

While the military remains firmly in charge in Egypt, new divisions are emerging both within and among the youth movements that fought to topple strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Ahmed Nazmi, a professional basketball player, is sitting around a table with about 15 young people in an outdoor garden of an upscale hotel in Cairo. They are meeting to try to form some sort of organization — what kind exactly they aren't sure.

This is the third such gathering Nazmi has attended Tuesday. He doesn't know most of the other people at the table.

Oregon is one of only a dozen states where the majority of its residents aren't from there. Each year thousands of 20-somethings move to Portland.

The city's entire population is growing, but Portland is still about 80 percent white, making it one of the most homogeneous metropolitan cities in the country.

Many of the migrants don't have jobs, kids or a mortgage. So why do they keep coming?

'A Mecca For The Misplaced'

Part one of a two-part series.

From the sky, the country of Kiribati looks like strands of yarn floating on the sea: 33 tiny islands, scattered across an area of the Pacific Ocean more than twice the size of Alaska.

Nearly half the population, more than 40,000 people, is crowded into just one of those strands –- the capital island, South Tarawa.

'Tis the season of the owner. Forget players. Owners are all the rage in sports. They're threatening to close down the National Football League and the National Basketball Association.

In Washington, they're threatening the First Amendment. In New York, the Mets' owners are accused of being in cahoots with Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. In Los Angeles, they're even making a fine mess of the Dodgers by getting divorced. I can't recall the last time owners made the tabloids getting divorced.