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A note written by a 13-year-old Boy Scout 40 years ago was recently found on top of the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin talks with the former Boy Scout Tim Taylor, who is now a superior court judge in San Diego.

Russia announced this week that it would no longer work to disarm nuclear and chemical weapons under the U.S. program known as Nunn Lugar. This was a very successful program that reduced Russia's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction over the past 20 years. U.S. money and expertise drove the program, but now the Russians believe they have plenty of both to continue the job on their own. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.

In the hotly contested battleground state of North Carolina, Election Day arrives early. Polls open for early voting starting this Thursday in a state that President Obama won by just four-tenths of a percentage point back in 2008. Until then, the state hadn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1976. Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin talks with John Frank, a political writer for the Raleigh-based News & Observer.

Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin talks with NPR's Mike Pesca for his take on the sports news of the week.

In a Census Bureau report released Wednesday, it tallied up the median earnings for different bachelor degree holders. Engineers make an average of $92,000 a year. Some other majors at the low-end of the list: education, fine and visual arts and communications. Those all earn an average of $50,000 to $60,000.

Mo Yan was one of three writers favored to win. He is perhaps best known in the West as the author of Red Sorghum, which was made into a film. He is only the second Chinese writer to win the Nobel — the other is poet Gao Xingjian, who won in 2000.

Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan will hold their only debate Thursday night in Danville, Kentucky. Biden will be under pressure to shift the momentum back to the Democratic ticket. Ryan will be trying to keep it going in Mitt Romney's direction.

Branson dropped out of school at 15, but by 16 he had his own magazine, and by 21 he had opened his first business — Virgin Records. Today, he's the head of a global business empire. In Like a Virgin, Branson shares the story of his success.

Saturday, Pakistani cricket star-turned politician Imran Khan leads a mass "march" (actually a convoy of trucks and buses) from Islamabad to the tribal territory of South Waziristan to protest U.S. drone strikes in the region. NPR's Philip Reeves reports the "marchers" are planning to enter South Waziristan on Sunday, but it is far from clear that the Pakistani military will allow them inside the tribal territory.

Mark Helprin's sweeping midcentury novel, In Sunlight and In Shadow, describes a postwar New York in limbo. Helprin borrowed from his own experiences to write this tale of love and familial obligations. "It's all based on what I know and what I knew," he says.