NPR News

In 1970, Ruben Salazar was the most prominent Latino journalist in Los Angeles, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and news director of the Spanish language powerhouse KMEX-TV.

Salazar was also an outspoken critic of how authorities exerted their power in the city's Latino communities.

That's why many were suspicious when Salazar was fatally shot in the head by a tear gas canister that was fired by an Los Angeles County deputy during the East LA riots 40 years ago.

Budget problems are forcing states and the federal government to rethink their approach to prisons. More than 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and the cost is getting unbearable.

Even conservatives who describe themselves as tough on crime are starting to call for the release of some inmates. That's in part because the numbers are speaking louder than ever.

States spend about $50 billion a year to house prisoners, and experts say incarceration is the fastest-growing expense in state budgets, except for Medicaid.

For decades Washington, D.C., was known affectionately as "Chocolate City" to many black Americans, because it was predominantly African-American.

Most big U.S. cities are getting browner as more blacks, Hispanics and Asians move in. Washington, by contrast, fell to just 53 percent black in 2009, down from a peak of 71 percent in 1970. That's partly because D.C. has quickly become one of the most expensive cities in America, and one of the only cities in the U.S. where property values continue to rise despite the economic downturn.

The Muslim Brotherhood is Egypt's oldest and most organized opposition group. It also was banned under President Hosni Mubarak, who stepped down last week.

What role the Brotherhood will play in the Egypt of the future worries some in the United States, Israel and other countries. They fear the group will do in Egypt what the Shiite clerics did in Iran after protesters ousted the late Shah: Turn Egypt into an Islamist state and an enemy of Israel.

But many in Egypt dismiss such concerns as fear-mongering.

Strategic Use Of Power

The most recent U.S. Census data prove what many of us knew to be true: There is a general movement to the suburbs, and it isn't just whites.

Diversity is spreading out from the cities (the traditional immigration gateways) and into the South and the Sun Belt, which are relatively new centers for employment.