NPR News

Delegates, journalists and protesters are beginning to fill the streets of Charlotte, N.C. The city has a lot riding on the Democratic National Convention, which gets under way Tuesday.

Hundreds of protesters paraded around the downtown area of Charlotte — which residents call Uptown — gathering in front of Bank of America headquarters.

It's getting tougher to be a Republican in some parts of the country while also fully accepting the practice of Islam.

In Tennessee, an incumbent in the U.S. House found herself on the defensive after being called soft on Shariah law, the code that guides Muslim beliefs and actions. And the state's governor has been forced to explain why he hired a Muslim.

Around 10 years ago, Malcolm MacLeod got interested in forgetting.

For most people, the tendency to forget is something we spend our time cursing. Where are my keys? What am I looking for in the refrigerator again? What is that woman's name?

Democrats today, for the most part, balance between two slightly competing ideas: that government is part of the solution, while still acknowledging that it can be part of the problem. Meanwhile, they're up against a long-running Republican messaging campaign against "big government."

The concept of big government goes back to around the beginning of the 20th century. Princeton historian Julian Zelizer traces the idea to the Wilson administration and its initiatives, including the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Many people in Missouri are still backing GOP Rep. Todd Akin — some more strongly than before — after his controversial remarks about rape and pregnancy.

Akin was polling ahead of the incumbent, Democrat Claire McCaskill, in the U.S. Senate race in Missouri, but his support fractured into several distinct camps after his comment that women's bodies can block pregnancy in cases of "legitimate rape." (He has since apologized.)

Ross Ventrone has been hired, promoted, or fired by the New England Patriots no fewer than 29 times in two years. The transition the defensive back from Villanova made into the world of professional football has been different from what most people would assume, he tells Guy Raz, host of weekends of All Things Considered.

Transcript

ROSS VENTRONE: OK. If you're under 25 and you're listening, for those of us who aren't, we're about to discuss some vocabulary The Boston Globe language columnist Ben Zimmer says you already know. Ben Zimmer, let's do this thing. Yolo.

BEN ZIMMER: Yolo.

GUY RAZ, HOST:

Yolo. It's an acronym that stands for you only live once, and Ben Zimmer says it's the buzzword of the year for teenagers and young adults.

ZIMMER: Especially after a song, "The Motto," by the rapper Drake came out.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE MOTTO")

Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church, has died in South Korea. He was 92.

Today The New York Times is running a nifty annotated list called "A History of New York in 50 Objects." Historians and museum curators chose for this project 50 objects that, to this anthropologist's eye, reflect the great significance of material culture in human life.

For each object listed, there's an interactive link.

The South African government is reversing its decision to charge 270 striking miners for the murder of their colleagues. Sort of.

The U.S. military is suspending the training of all new recruits for the Afghan Local Police for at least a month in order to give American trainers time to re-vet current Afghan troops for ties to the insurgency.

The halt affects the training of 1,000 new Afghan Local Police while the existing force of 16,000 is re-vetted.