Morning Edition

Memorial Day weekend is regarded as the unofficial start of summer. Tell that to people in Yellowstone, where there's still too much snow to open most of the park's campsites.

North Korea announced that it is releasing an American who was arrested last November. Eddie Jun. a Korean-American from California and an evangelist, reportedly was accused of spreading Christianity. North Korea's Central News Agency said Jun was being released on "humanitarian grounds."

Dirt isn’t something most people think about on a daily basis. But Rob Allerheiligen has spent a lot of time researching and transporting the grainy brown substance over the past year.

A Vietnam-era veteran and former Colorado State University professor, Allerheiligen is one of a small group of volunteers who have traveled to historic graveyards and battlefields across the world. The idea is to collect soil samples that on Sunday will become part of the Veterans Plaza garden.

In New York Thursday night, customers turned out to say farewell to the famed restaurant Elaine's. From member station WNYC, Kathleen Horan has the story.

A Democrat in western New York won election to Congress this week in a district that had been held by the Republican Party for four decades. The deciding issue may have been the GOP's plan to revamp Medicare. In addition, more names are surfacing as potential Republican presidential candidates.