Around the Nation

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO agreed on a plan for a new system to import temporary workers. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving discusses the politics of the business-labor immigration deal. Rusty Barr, owner of Barr Evergreens, shares how he uses the guest-worker program.

The government-funded plan could cost $3 billion, take 10 years and involve hundreds of scientists. The hope is the project can unlock the secrets of conditions such as Alzheimer's, schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. But progress will likely be slow, and in the end, will it be worth the cost?

Even without prisoners, Alcatraz remains one of the most infamous prisons in America. Five decades after it closed, it still captures the public's imagination. Those who stayed there, however, can tell you exactly what doing time on "The Rock" was like.

Same-sex couples in the military will be watching closely now that the U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. Anxiously awaiting a decision are Army lieutenant colonel Heather Mack and her wife, Ashley Broadway, who've been together for 15 years and have two children. They say repealing DOMA would help many enlisted same-sex military couples, who don't receive funds to move non-military spouses from one base to the next. But most of all, Broadway and Mack say repealing DOMA would give them the recognition they crave: to have their marriage officially recognized in every state in the country. Jessia Jones of WUNC talked with the couple.

After all the acrimony and debate, many Americans still don't know whether their states are going to expand Medicaid or set up health care exchanges. A lot of the confusion over the Affordable Care Act comes, in part, from a commanding "misinformation and disinformation" campaign.

Over the past three decades, artist and sculptor Arthur Wood has turned his four-story home into a towering cathedral built out of salvaged junk. But after a fire in 2006, the New York City Department of Buildings determined that the Clinton Hill landmark was no longer a safe place to live.

Have you ever wanted to see the view from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania? Google is making that possible — sending employees up the world's highest peaks with digital cameras, tripods and fisheye lenses to take photos that can be stitched together for a 360 degree view.

The much-anticipated Supreme Court arguments on California's Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act represent a historic moment in the Court's history. Legal analysts and activists are contemplating what the Court's decisions could mean for the future of United States law.

Instead, say it's from the "Outer Coastal Plain." (It's part of a plan to kick the state's reputation for making cheap wine.)

Dawn Maestas helps women who have been branded with tattoos as a result of domestic violence.