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House budget chief and former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan unveils the House GOP budget plan Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats will do the same. For more on the GOP plan, Renee Montagne speaks with NPR's Tamara Keith.

For only the second time ever, the Securities and Exchange Commission is charging a state with fraud, for allegedly misleading investors about the health of its pension funds. The SEC says the state of Illinois did not properly inform investors that its pension funds were significantly underfunded when selling bonds from 2005 to 2009. This is the latest fiscal black eye for a state with a pension shortfall approaching a whopping $100 billion. The state has agreed to settle the charges.

As the conclave to select a new pope gets under way at the Vatican, what do American Catholics want from the next pontiff? Renee Montagne speaks with Greg Smith of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life about their most recent survey.

A New York state judge has sided with the beverage industry and struck down the Bloomberg administration's controversial ban on big sugary drinks. The judge ruled that the rule, put in place by New York City's health department and set to take effect Tuesday, is "arbitrary and capricious."

A Seattle widow's one-stop estate planning advice blog was inspired by her own paperwork frustrations after her husband's death. Chanel Reynolds offers a checklist of documents to prepare, a will template and a list of details to write down, like passwords to online accounts.

"The blunt truth is men still run the world," says Silicon Valley executive Sheryl Sandberg — and the problem begins as early as the playground, where assertive boys are called leaders, and assertive girls are called bossy.

Chuck Hagel took his first trip abroad as defense secretary to Afghanistan this past weekend, and some things did not go as planned.

Host Scott Simon talks with reporter and author John Thavis about the divisions among cardinals voting at the conclave to select a new pope for the Catholic Church. Thavis is the author of The Vatican Diaries.

Basketball's Miami Heat extend their win streak by defeating the Philadelphia 76ers Friday night, but the Chicago Blackhawk's win streak was upended Friday by the Colorado Avalanche, who scored four goals in the second quarter. Host Scott Simon talks sports with NPR's Tom Goldman.

Artist Llyn Foulkes has been an underground force on the Los Angeles art scene for more than 50 years. His work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney in New York and L.A.'s MOCA. He's won first prize at the Paris Biennale, and he's been on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, as a musician. Carolina Miranda has a profile of a very unusual man.