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Wiley Cash's new novel follows two sisters whose errant father kidnaps them out of foster care after their mother dies. Cash tells NPR's Rachel Martin about his decision to set the story during Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's 1998 home run battle.

An intense debate is underway in Pakistan over what to do about a surge of deadly Taliban attacks. The city's chief counterterrosim officer was killed a few weeks ago. Superintendent Chaudhry Aslam Khan was and remains a legendary figure.

A Chinese cookbook author remembers her childhood in China, where dumplings were steamed to conserve precious cooking oil. Recently she gave her favorite steamed dumplings an update.

With thousands of oil-related jobs in western North Dakota, some of the region's new workers are putting down roots. But many more commute from states where jobs are hard to come by — and that can mean being separated from spouses and children for weeks at a time.

Drillers pumping oil on the Great Plains are also producing a lot of natural gas. But the state doesn't have the infrastructure to transport or store it, so much of that gas isn't being sold — it's being set on fire.

Mexican authorities have arrested one of the top drug cartel leaders in the western state of Michoacan. Federal forces recently moved into the state to disarm civilian vigilantes who have been fighting to reclaim their communities from the cartel.

Steve Inskeep talks to Harvard economist Nathan Hendren, a co-author of the study, which shows social mobility in the United States is not decreasing. David Wessel, of the Brookings Institution and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, says while mobility isn't getting any worse, there still is a big gap between rich and poor.

A tireless campaigner for his own vision of a utopia marked by peace and togetherness, Pete Seeger's tools were his songs, his voice, his enthusiasm and his musical instruments.

President Obama is expected to work around Congress more this year. One of the things he will do is issue an executive order to raise the minimum wage for federal contract workers. Steve Inskeep talks to presidential adviser John Podesta about Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night.

Tea Party conservatives and some liberals agree on key criticisms as the new education standards roll out in 45 states: that they're a one-size-fits-all approach, create a de facto national curriculum, put too much emphasis on standardized tests and undermine teacher autonomy.