Justice Department officials announced Tuesday that the troubled Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has a new leader. Officials handpicked Minnesota's top federal prosecutor, B. Todd Jones, to serve as the bureau's acting director.

Deep in the heart of Texas, home to one of his toughest rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney declared today that:

"I have spent most of my life outside of politics, dealing with real problems in the real economy. Career politicians got us into this mess and they simply don't know how to get us out."

As jobs are among Americans' most pressing concerns now, President Obama announced Monday that he has picked Princeton labor economist Alan Kreuger to be the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. To explore what Kreuger can do for the economy, Michel Martin speaks with University of Michigan Economics Professor Susan Collins.

On Monday, Syria's closest ally Iran called on President Bashar al-Assad to listen to the "legitimate demands" of demonstrators. But today, Syrian government forces reportedly opened fire on protesters as worshipers exited mosques, marking Ramadan's end. To learn about Syria, host Michel Martin speaks with members of Al Jazeera International and the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies.

Poor Will’s Almanack for the fourth week of Late Summer

After a cool wave came through my yard last night, I walked outside into the breeze, and I suddenly became aware of the disconcerting power of Late Summer. I was disoriented and restless, filled with a sentimental confusion of sadness and excitement.

The morning wind was telling me stories, this cool wave predicting transformations, the unavoidable coming of fall, the inner changes I will undergo, the exterior, dramatic alterations destined in the trees and…my life.

Jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is suffering from pneumonia and is not in a medically-induced coma, as has been widely reported, a source familiar with Jeffs' condition tells NPR.

According to the source, the 55-year-old leader of the nation's largest polygamist group was sedated, pharmacologically paralyzed and placed on a ventilator as part of his treatment for pneumonia. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to federal medical privacy laws that do not permit disclosure of medical treatment without permission of the patient or family.

It's a piece of necessary wisdom that will be shared with countless college students this fall by nervous parents: Tell a story at a party, and it's heard by a handful of people, whose reactions you perhaps have some ability to predict. Tell it on the internet, and it will be heard by the people you know and the people you don't — and the latter outnumber the former by several orders of magnitude. Don't put your picture on Facebook flashing the camera or looking drunk or kissing someone you might later regret kissing.

If there were an award for the "most challenged" school district in the United States, the Detroit public school system would have good reason to claim the title.

The system is wrestling with crumbling buildings, low achievement and a decline in enrollment that just won't stop. But this year, the system has added some new faces and plans to the mix in an attempt to revive it.

"Critics here at home" argue that the war in Iraq has hurt the reputation of the United States around the world, former Vice President Dick Cheney acknowledged this morning. But he doesn't believe that's true.

"In fact I think it was sound policy that dealt with a very serious problem" — then-Iraqi leader Sadaam Hussein — Cheney said on NBC-TV's The Today Show.

Thousands of government organizations and private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence. Last December, The Washington Post reported that this "top-secret world ... has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work."