The supercommittee, charged with cutting federal deficits by at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade, is down to the final days before its Nov. 23 deadline, and the group appears to be at an impasse. NPR's Tamara Keith and Mara Liasson talk with host Audie Cornish to explain both the economic and political consequences of supercommittee success or failure.

When apartheid ended in 1994, the new South African government laid out plans to achieve economic and social equality. A key goal was land reform. The government hoped to transfer 30 percent of white-owned farms to black ownership by 2014, but, as Anders Kelto reports, it's clear the government is nowhere near that goal.

The U.S. Army is working to use smartphones on the battlefield as a way to keep soldiers connected and give them better tools. Specialist Nicholas Johnson has designed a group of applications meant to help troops on the ground. Host Audie Cornish has more.

Six Republican presidential hopefuls gathered in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday, and each made a pitch for the state's very important Christian conservative vote.

The event was not a debate, but a roundtable discussion. The candidates sat side-by-side at what was described as a Thanksgiving table, complete with pumpkins and autumn leaves. Not present at the table was former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who chose not to attend.

A number of studies of homeless youth in big cities put forth a startling statistic: Depending on the study, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of homeless youths identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.

It's largely because gay youths are more often kicked out of their homes than straight youths. And even if they are not kicked out, they may feel so uncomfortable that they leave.

In New York City, nearly 4,000 young people are homeless every night — many of them gay.

Reaching Out To Homeless Youths

As the drawdown of American combat troops in Afghanistan nears, the U.S. is facing an increasingly dangerous opponent. The Pakistan-based Haqqani network, allied with the Taliban, is believed to be behind a recent string of deadly attacks in Afghanistan, and it's forcing the U.S. to rethink an earlier strategy for stabilizing the country.

But the strategy hinges on help and cooperation from Pakistan — which is never a sure thing.

Officials in the United States have been wringing their hands lately over how to revitalize domestic manufacturing and keep factories from moving overseas.

But not all of those plants are going across the ocean to China or India or some other low-cost production hub in Asia. Many are relocating just south of the border to Mexico, prompting business leaders to argue that the U.S.-Mexico border region may be the key to rejuvenating manufacturing in North America.

In 1990, a fire broke out in a house in Jacksonville, Fla., killing two women and four children. The husband of one of the women became the prime suspect, and that's when a fire investigator named John Lentini was called in.

At the time, Lentini says, the initial evidence pointed to a fire that was deliberately set. He calculated that it would have taken about 20 minutes for the house to become engulfed in flames — what's called a flashover — leaving plenty of time for someone to set the fire and get out.

President Obama wrapped up a nine-day trip to Asia today, during which he announced a troop build up in Australia and a rare State Department visit to the isolationist country of Myanmar formerly known as Burma. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host host Laura Sullivan speaks with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, about the trip — as well as other stories from the past week.