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Embattled Mayor Bob Filner on Friday announced that he would step down at the end of the month following allegations by more than a dozen women that he sexually harassed them.

With equal measures of remorse and defiance, Filner, speaking before the City Council, apologized to his supporters and to "all the women I have offended."

"I had no intention to be offensive, to violate any physical or personal space," he said.

"I never had any intention to be a mayor who went out this way," he said.

But Filner described his forced resignation a "political coup" and said it had been orchestrated by a "lynch mob."

He said "not one allegation" of sexual harassment against him had been proved.

"I have never sexually harassed anyone," he said.

In conclusion, Filner said: "The hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

Filner's resignation goes into effect Aug. 30 and Todd Gloria,the Democratic City Council president, will become acting mayor until a special election is held within 90 days.

The announcement comes after the City Council voted 7-0 to approve an agreement hammered out in three days of talks between the mayor and city negotiators. The Associated Press, quoting a person with knowledge of the discussions, said the main sticking point had been granting Filner indemnity and covering his legal fees in a sexual harassment suit brought by his former aide Irene McCormack Jackson.

The Los Angeles Times, quoting unnamed sources, reported earlier that under the deal the city would agree to "pay some, if not all, of Filner's legal fees and his share of any damages awarded in the lawsuit."

Filner, 70, the city's first Democratic mayor in two decades, faces a possible recall election if he doesn't step down. He's been accused of groping and forcibly kissing as many as 18 women. He acknowledged being disrespectful and intimidating women, but has denied harassment.

The city's nine council members were joined by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi earlier this month in calling for Filner's resignation.

On Aug. 5, Filner said he was entering a two-week program of sexual harassment therapy, but a week later, he left the treatment, saying he would continue it on an outpatient basis.

Speculation that Filner would resign has been building this week. On Thursday, the law firm representing the mayor, Payne & Fears LLC, said a "tentative agreement" had been reached with the city, but wouldn't provide details.

Ahead of the City Council meeting Friday, San Diego's attorney, Jan Goldsmith, who was helping negotiate a deal with Filner, said the stability of the city hinged on him stepping down.

President Obama has been meeting with his national security team to discuss reports of the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons, a White House official said Saturday, amid strong hints that a U.S. military strike was on the table.

"We have a range of options available, and we are going to act very deliberately so that we're making decisions consistent with our national interest as well as our assessment of what can advance our objectives in Syria," the White House official, speaking on background, said.

The statement follows comments Friday by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that the president has asked the Pentagon for options on Syria and that U.S. warships armed with cruise missiles were being repositioned in the Mediterranean.

Hagel said the Defense Department "has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options — whatever options the president might choose."

Obama, who has shown reluctance to intervene in Syria's 2-1/2-year civil war has said that the use of chemical weapons would be a "red line" for the United States.

In June, the White House said it had "high confidence" of an attack involving deadly sarin gas that killed 100 to 150 Syrians.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Angela Kane, the United Nations disarmament chief, arrived in Damascus in hopes of persuading the government to allow a team to examine the site of Wednesday's reported attack in Ghouta district, a suburb of the capital.

Syrian state television has suggested rebels are to blame for the attack this week. It said government soldiers "suffocated" as they tried to enter Jobar, one of the towns in the Ghouta district where chemical weapons are said to have been used.

That suggestion was echoed by Syria's deputy prime minister, Qadri Jamil, who blamed the rebels.

Jamil told The Associated Press on Friday that he was personally in favor of the U.N. looking into the Ghouta incident.

"We don't want to be like Iraq, opening our territory up to all sorts of investigators, going through our homes and bedrooms. Syria is a sovereign nation and will preserve its sovereignty," he told the AP in an interview at the prime minister's offices in the Damascus district of Kfar Sousseh.

On whether war reveals character

"It does, tragically, reveal character in some of the combatants, and horror, atrocity and soul-damaging failure on the part of many of the participants — but this was a tale in which that female capacity to deal with horror on a process-line basis was something I wanted to write about. So in the case of these young women, Sally, Naomi, their friends, their character is amply and richly revealed, and their capacity to deal with this ennobled them. Whereas the trenches were ignoble, there were scenes of huge heroism and huge folly and huge fear on the part of individual soldiers, but these women, I think were ennobled."

On the effect of Schindler's List

"Well, it gave a new visibility to my work, and I think it helped, the fact that publishers can have that as a banner ... to put on the cover of my books is a great help. When people used to thank me for writing Schindler's List, I would be abashed, because I'd say to them, but I did it for the normal novelistic reasons, the normal professional writer reasons: I wanted to make a living. Above all, of course, when you fall in love with a story, you don't write it for reward, but you sometimes, irrationally, get rewards. And I used to say to them, look, I've been rewarded for writing this, and I'm therefore astonished that, coming from such venal origins, my endeavors could produce in your family this or that effect."

Read an excerpt of The Daughters of Mars

President Obama toured Pennsylvania and New York by bus last week to promote his college affordability plan.

But the tour, with its back-to-school theme, was also the opening salvo in an upcoming budget battle with Congressional Republicans.

On Thursday, Obama spoke to a packed high school gym in Syracuse, where the fall semester has not yet begun.

"I know you're still on summer vacation," he told the crowd. "You've got a few more days. So taking the time to be here when you've still got a little bit — that last little bit — of summer break, that's a big deal."

Obama can appreciate how the Syracuse students feel, since Congress is also on its own extended summer recess, offering a temporary respite from the long-running battle over government spending levels.

Obama told a town hall meeting in Binghamton, New York that when lawmakers return next month, he'll keep pushing to restore funding for Head Start and other programs that have been squeezed by across-the-board budget cuts.

"When we get back to Washington, Congress gets back to Washington, this is going to be a major debate," he said. "It's the same debate we've been having for the last two years. The difference is, now deficits are already coming down."

Obama acknowledged that rising health care costs still pose a long-term challenge for the federal budget, but he argues there's no immediate crisis. In the near term, the tide of red ink is rapidly receding, though some lawmakers continue to insist on additional cuts.

"Unfortunately right now the federal budget generally has been a political football in Washington," he said.

Speaking of football, the president surprised the girl's soccer team at Tully Central High School in Tully, New York. The president talked with the soccer players about sports and summer jobs. Then he turned to the main message of this bus tour: college affordability.

"I'm assuming everybody here is going to want to go to college," he said, to resounding affirmation from the players.

Obama says higher education is the best investment young people can make in their future, but with tuition costs outstripping paychecks, many families face an unpleasant choice between a heavy debt load or skipping college altogether.

Obama's plan includes a new ratings system to help families find the best bargains in college. He also wants to use those ratings to steer federal aid, though that part of the proposal would require approval from Congress.

"You know, that's always challenging, but these are ideas that should have bipartisan support," he said. "Of course, so should Obamacare. It's actually a really good idea."

The final stop on the president's bus tour was Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsyania, the hometown of Vice President Biden. Obama noted that it was five years ago Friday that he first publicly announced Biden would be his running mate.

The Vice President joined Obama on that last leg of the tour, and it was a happy homecoming for the blue-collar Biden, who's mulling his own bid for the White House in 2016.

"The people who grew up in neighborhoods like this one, the one I grew up here in Scranton, have dreams just as big, just as expansive, and just as accomplishable as any place in the world," Biden said.

Are we seeing the beginning of a trend from the occupant of the Oval Office — a President Obama unbound?

That's the question after Obama cast aside his usual caution while speaking at a town hall-style meeting in Binghamton, N.Y., on Friday. Asked about his proposals for attacking soaring higher education costs, Obama said:

"This is probably controversial to say, but what the heck. I'm in my second term, so I can say it. [Audience laughter.] You know, I believe, for example, that law schools would probably be wise to think about being two years instead of three years because by the third year — in the first two years, young people are learning in the classroom. The third year they'd be better off clerking or practicing in a firm, even if they weren't getting paid that much."

An agreement has been reached to dismiss a sexual harassment and discrimination suit against Food Network personality Paula Deen and her brother.

The Associated Press reports that a document filed in U.S. District Court in Savannah, Ga., said the parties had reached agreement "without any award or fees to any party."

Lisa Jackson — a former employee of Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House, a restaurant owned by Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers — charged that she suffered from sexual harassment and racial discrimination.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. threw out the discrimination claims, saying Jackson had no standing to sue for what she said was ill treatment of black workers at the restaurant, Uncle Bubba's Seafood and Oyster House.

In a statement issued by Deen, she says she's "looking forward to getting this behind me," but that she also plans to review workplace environment issues raised in the lawsuit.

For most people, Scranton isn't high on their lists of must-see places. Most people know the struggling Pennsylvania city, if at all, as the nondescript setting for the television comedy, The Office.

But politicians can't get enough of the place.

This time, it's President Obama making an appearance, speaking at Lackawanna College on Friday as part of his college affordability tour. He's bringing along Vice President Joe Biden, a native son.

It's not their first visit. Like Rick's Cafe in Casablanca, sooner or later everybody in national politics comes to Scranton. The Clintons, Mitt Romney, John Kerry and George W. Bush have all made appearances in recent years.

"It seems like almost every year they come, sometimes more during an election year," Carl Graziano, Scranton's acting police chief, said this week. "For a city our size, we seem to get them more than usual."

There's a good reason for this.

It's true that the city of 75,000 people has struggled financially since bituminous coal mining went into decline. But while Scranton may not be big or rich, it's entirely emblematic of a certain slice of the electorate. Pennsylvania still has plenty of persuadable voters — conservative Democrats who want the government to play a role in boosting the economy, but aren't keen on abortion or gay marriage.

If you're Obama, you can address that type of voter more readily in Scranton than you can speaking to your base in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh. It's a white working-class city without enough work.

"They are conservative [Democrats] and they swing both ways," says Boris Krawczeniuk, a political reporter with the Scranton Times-Tribune. "Every once in a while, you have to say hello and convince them you're still on their side."

Something In The Soil

Growing up in Scranton is almost like the 20th century equivalent of being raised in a log cabin.

Biden, who hasn't lived there in 60 years, still refers to it so often and so admiringly as the epitome of working class values that Saturday Night Live last year tried to imagine him running the place down.

"I grew up there. I love it. It's the single worst place on earth," the Biden character said.

Hillary Clinton's dad played high school football in Scranton and was buried there the first year Bill Clinton served in the White House. She beat Obama in Lackawanna County by a nearly 3-to-1 margin in the 2008 presidential primary.

Her grandfather built a cabin along nearby Lake Winola that her brothers still own. "Thankfully, they have made some improvements," she wrote in Living History, her 2003 autobiography. "A couple of years ago they even put in a shower."

Taking Politics Seriously

Scranton is an especially resonant political town for Pennsylvanians. Democratic Sen. Robert Casey grew up in Scranton, as did his late father, a popular two-term governor.

"You used to have Reagan Democrats," says Krawczeniuk. "Here, they're called Casey Democrats."

Bill Scranton, the former Republican governor and presidential candidate who died last month, was a direct descendant of the town's founder. He started his legal career there and raised his family in Scranton, including a namesake son who went on to serve as the state's lieutenant governor.

It's a city where politics is taken seriously.

"Scranton has had a history of strong machine politics," says Thomas Baldino, a political science professor at Wilkes University in nearby Wilkes-Barre. "This region is well known for its ability to get out the vote."

A Struggling Local Economy

During last year's vice presidential debate, Republican Rep. Paul Ryan sought to get under Biden's skin by noting that unemployment in Scranton had increased on Obama's watch to 10 percent.

It's come down a bit since, but only a bit. The local unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in June. Scranton has had the highest unemployment rate of any metropolitan area in Pennsylvania for 39 months running.

Local food banks aren't able to keep enough food on the shelves to meet demand. A former coal capital, Scranton has struggled to keep up with the knowledge economy.

Household income there is well below the statewide average, while the poverty rate is much higher. "In Scranton, a stunning 41.3 percent of those over 18 have withdrawn altogether from the work force," reports The New York Times.

Perhaps for these reasons, not everyone is greeting Obama with open arms.

"Our families are out of work and poor and all the president continues to do is tour the country like Bruce Springstein [sic], as though seeing his face is some sort of prophetic inspiration," Kevin Haggerty, a local state representative — and a Democrat — wrote on his Facebook wall. "Why don't you spend a few nights here, sit down in closed doors and ensure we don't turn out like Detroit."

Lending A Helping Hand

If Obama represents an America that is more cosmopolitan, educated and racially mixed than Scranton overall, most local officials recognize that their community can use some help from the federal government.

"We're the people who are just making it from paycheck to paycheck," says Evie Rafalko Murphy, the Lackawanna County recorder of deeds and a member of the Democratic National Committee. "We're really interested in what the presidents or the other candidates have to say, because what they say or do affects us the most."

The president came to Scranton in 2011 to talk about the importance of extending payroll tax cuts and he's back to talk up education and technical training.

The locals aren't just interested in speeches. Lackawanna County recently worked with the Small Business Administration to become the first local government in the nation to extend a program that had been part of Obama's 2009 stimulus package.

For every business that qualifies for an SBA loan, the county itself will now pick up the tab for origination fees that can run as high as $250,000.

"You can't rebuild the country at large in one fell swoop," says Corey O'Brien, a Lackawanna County commissioner and champion of the program. "You need to rebuild the economy one community at a time."

That's just the type of message Obama comes to a place like Scranton to present.

There's a joke among scientists: prediction is difficult, especially about the future. For Ross Stein, it wasn't a joke after the Indian Ocean quake and tsunami in 2004. It killed some 275,000 people. "I just felt almost a sense of shame," Stein says, "that this tragedy could have been so immense in a world where we have so much intense research effort."

Stein's a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey. He says quake experts have learned a couple of important things over the last few years. They've learned from big quakes in China, Chile, Japan and New Zealand, as well as the Indian Ocean quake.

The first new idea is about aftershocks that follow a big earthquake. They're not just a sort of quake death spasm; they can actually make more quakes more likely.

Take for example two recent quakes — one off the coast of Chile, and the Japanese Tohoku quake. "Even though these megaquakes in 2010 and 2011 were enormously damaging," says Stein, "in airline parlance they were still near-misses." They hit about 300 miles from Santiago and Tokyo, and that's lucky. You'd think they'd dodged a bullet. But Stein says new research indicates they may be in more danger now. That's because those quakes and aftershocks actually exported stress to other faults, faults close to Santiago and Tokyo.

And that's bad. More stress could make them slip and cause another big quake near those cities. Says Stein: "So in the greater Tokyo area, the hazard is probably two to three times higher than it was before the 2011 main shock."

Now, there is some good news here as well. Stein says the pattern and frequency of a megaquake's aftershocks should give scientists a way to roughly calculate the chance of another subsequent quake — in fact, with more certainty than they can predict an initial quake.

So that's one lesson learned. Here's another. In Japan, it was a tectonic plate boundary out in the ocean that caused the quake and tsunami. Scientists had been watching it, and they knew it could go sometime. But they figured if it did, only one section at a time would rupture, kind of like a button or two on a shirt popping. They were wrong. It unzipped.

"What happened in Tohoku is the whole thing ruptured and created a much larger earthquake than had previously been anticipated," says Ned Field, a geophysicist with the USGS. Field says geoscientists now view some fault systems as closely tied together; when one part ruptures, others follow. "We're recognizing that rather than having these isolated magnitude 7-ish type earthquakes," he says, "on occasion these faults can link up into much larger earthquakes."

So, in effect, what scientists are learning is that a big quake can be contagious, either right away, or over a period of months or years.

This has implications. Field is rewriting the earthquake hazard plan for California, due out by the end of the year. The new version will incorporate the idea that if a quake hits nearby, chances of another one go up. "That may be a basis for going out and getting more earthquake insurance for the next year," he says, since your risk will rise. Or it might induce you to do a little home reinforcement to make your house more resilient.

Stein, who describes the latest quake research in the journal Science, says geoscientists now have more to offer the public. "We owe them our best effort at depicting where the hazard is high," he says, "so people can be aware of it and make decisions."

Faith is a brutal, unflinching, anxiety-inducing, almost unbearably hard to watch film. Its slow start is partly justifiable as a way to ease us into the increasing menace and despondency of its second half, which climaxes, as in Love, with a set of brilliant scenes: unvarnished portrayals of the lows of humanity Seidl has been circling throughout.

How does one recommend such a film? In Faith's case, it can be harder to than with Love, which, even as its protagonist's self-destructive behavior became increasingly difficult to countenance, demonstrated a care for her that gave the film a humanist heart. In Love, Seidl seemed to be testing the limits of our faith in humanity by subjecting us to some of its more deplorable or pitiful aspects, but at least that faith was always still in play.

With Faith we approach ever closer to an irredeemable view of our species. It's unclear who or what these characters can turn to for consolation or how they might manage to fill the holes they have in their lives.

This makes Faith an even more difficult film than Love. Goodness at the heart of humanity is harder to see in Faith. At points, particularly in some of early scenes showing Anna's self-flagellation, the film also approaches the territory of provocation for its own sake, which at this level of harsh realism would constitute an attack on human nature.

But somehow, even as the film's second half grows increasingly disturbing, we begin to hear the humanist heart of Love still very faintly beating, if not through Faith's hope for its characters' futures then in its clear revulsion over their suffering. The third film in Seidl's trilogy is titled Paradise: Hope, and while we may be left with little of that at the end of Faith, we are not at misanthropy yet. And that means that if you're up for its challenge, Faith still reaps rewards. (Recommended)

Actress Ziyi Zhang is probably best known for her roles in the Oscar-winning films Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha. Now she co-stars in a new film, The Grandmaster, where she plays a fierce martial artist who stops at nothing to protect her family's legacy. But she says she can "do better than just kicking ass." She can seriously act, too.

The Grandmaster opens in theaters Friday, and it's inspired by the life of Ip Man, the legendary kung fu master and teacher of Bruce Lee. The film takes place after the fall of China's last dynasty. It was a time of political chaos and war, but also the golden age of Chinese martial arts.

Zhang explains to Tell Me More guest host Celeste Headlee that the film is about the struggle to become a kung fu grandmaster, and the tension of forbidden love. The actress also talked about how women are portrayed in kung fu movies, and why she still won't move to Hollywood.

When the drug company Merck Animal Health announced plans to suspend sales of its Zilmax feed additive last week, many observers were shocked.

Yet concern about Zilmax and the class of growth-promotion drugs called beta agonists has been building for some time. In an interesting twist, the decisive pressure on Zilmax did not come from animal welfare groups or government regulators: It emerged from within the beef industry itself, and from academic experts who have long worked as consultants to the industry.

Among them is Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a world-renowned expert on how cattle react to their environments. Grandin, whose life is the subject of an HBO biopic, has redesigned slaughterhouses to make them more humane.

Around the summer of 2006, she says, she started seeing a new kind of problem among the cattle, especially when the weather got really hot. "You had animals that were stiff and sore-footed, animals that were reluctant to move," she recalls. "They act like the floor is red-hot. They don't want to put their feet down. And I had never seen these kinds of symptoms before, ever!"

The problems, she says, affect as many as 1 out of every 5 animals. She's become increasingly convinced that the problems result from the drugs called beta agonists.

Beta agonists are similar, chemically, to the adrenaline that our bodies produce. In humans, this class of drugs is used to treat asthma. When fed to cattle or pigs, though, the animals grow more muscle.

"These beta agonist drugs have a dramatic and profound and beneficial impact on production," says Guy Loneragan, a professor of food safety and public health at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. "They can add somewhere in the range of 15 to 30 pounds of beef to a carcass in the last three to four weeks of the fattening period." That makes a significant difference to a beef producer's bottom line, and as a result, these drugs are widely used.

Yet Loneragan, too, has come to believe that these profitable drugs may be causing problems.

Two weeks ago, at a meeting held by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, he presented data showing that feedlot cattle consuming beta agonists died more often. At that same meeting, Grandin gave a talk about her observations of cattle that seemed reluctant to move. And an animal welfare expert from a big meat packer, JBS, showed a video of cattle that appeared lethargic, unable to walk properly.

Grandin says that video made people angry. "You've got a lot of people in the cattle industry who care about cattle, and they don't like to see cattle that are lame," she says.

As that conference was ending, another big meat packer, Tyson Foods, announced that it would stop buying cattle that had been fed one particular beta agonist: Zilmax. Zilmax, or zilpaterol, is considered the most powerful beta agonist.

Loneragan later had a chance to go through information that the company had collected on the effects of beta agonists. "As they pieced together their information — and as I had the opportunity to review their information — they felt that they had to act, and I felt that they made the right decision," he says.

Merck Animal Health, which makes Zilmax, initially defended its product, but decided last week to suspend sales of the drug. The company says that it remains convinced that Zilmax is safe for animals, and it expects to answer all the questions that people now have. Meanwhile, feedlot operators still can use another beta agonist, which is sold by the company Elanco.

The Food and Drug Administration, which approved these drugs, remains a bystander for now. In an email, an FDA representative said only that the agency "has received a very small number of reports" of problems with these drugs and that the "FDA will review any new information to determine if there is a safety issue."

Grandin, for her part, is not pushing for a ban on beta agonists. She thinks it may be possible to use these drugs in ways that avoid causing harm.

"Maybe you just don't do it in the summer, when it's hot," she says. "The doses are probably going to have to be cut back. But these problems have got to stop. I've laid awake at night about it. I've worked all my career to improve how animals are handled, and these animals are just suffering. It has to stop!"

Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner on Wednesday reached a tentative deal involving a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him and the city.

City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said a proposed resolution was reached and it will be presented to the City Council during closed session Friday. No details were released, and it was unclear whether a resignation was part of the deal.

Goldsmith told The Associated Press the proposal would be made public if approved by the council.

"I'm sorry I cannot give more information," he said.

The resolution came after three days of mediation talks over the lawsuit filed by Filner's former communications director Irene McCormack Jackson.

The talks ended hours after a San Diego businesswoman became the latest woman to go public in accusing Filner of making unwanted sexual advances.

The 70-year-old former congressman has been besieged by similar allegations from at least 17 women, and whether he'll be able to hang onto his job is in limbo.

A petition drive to recall Filner is in full swing, and calls from his own party urging him to step down were mounting with the Democratic National Committee planning to vote on a resolution Friday.

Dianne York, the latest accuser, said Filner placed his hand on her buttocks while she posed for a photo with him about three months ago.

York told reporters at a news conference in National City that the incident took place after a meeting at his office. She said she reported the incident to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Those at the negotiating table involving the lawsuit said they have been told not to comment. Filner has been attending the talks, along with Goldsmith, City Council President Todd Gloria and Councilman Kevin Faulconer.

Analysts have speculated Filner might have negotiated a deal that would shed his financial liability in the lawsuit in exchange for his resignation.

Gloria would serve as acting mayor if Filner resigns.

Filner's former communications director, McCormack, as she is known professionally, was the first to go public with allegations against him. Other accusers include a university dean and a retired Navy rear admiral. Some contend he cornered, groped and forcibly kissed them.

Filner announced three weeks ago that he would undergo therapy after acknowledging he has disrespected and intimidated women. He has denied committing sexual harassment.

NASA is bringing a retired spacecraft back into service to help search for asteroids that could pose a danger to Earth, the space agency announced on Wednesday.

The spacecraft's three-year mission will begin next month "with the goal of discovering and characterizing near-Earth objects (NEOs), space rocks that can be found orbiting within 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from Earth's path around the sun," NASA said in a statement.

The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) had been out of service since February 2011, after a 13-month mission to " look for the glow of celestial heat sources from asteroids, stars and galaxies," NASA said, calling its work " the most accurate survey to date" of near-Earth objects.

Universe Today says the WISE spacecraft "has been sleeping in a polar orbit around Earth for two years," and "will be turned back on next month to hunt for more potentially hazardous asteroids, and perhaps search for an asteroid that NASA could capture and explore in the future."

Reuters reports:

"NASA already has found about 95 percent of the near-Earth asteroids that are .62 miles or larger in diameter.

"The agency is about halfway through a 15-year effort to find 90 percent of all near-Earth objects that are as small as about 459 feet in diameter.

"The search took on a note of urgency after a small asteroid blasted through the skies above Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013 and exploded with 20- to 30 times the force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. More than 1,500 people were injured by flying glass and debris.

"Later that same day, a much larger but unrelated asteroid soared closer to Earth than the networks of communication satellites that ring the planet.

"The events prompted Congressional hearings and new calls for NASA and other agencies to step up their asteroid detection initiatives."

(We most recently updated this post at 9:10 a.m. ET.)

"Two Syrian pro-opposition groups are claiming that dozens of people were killed Wednesday in a poisonous gas attack near Damascus," NPR's Jean Cochran reported earlier this morning on our Newscast. The groups are blaming the attack on government forces, she said.

"The reports have not been independently confirmed," Jean added, and President Bashar Assad's regime says the claims are "baseless."

Reuters began Wednesday leading its report this way: "Syrian activists accused President Bashar al-Assad's forces of launching a nerve gas attack that killed at least 213 people on Wednesday, in what would, if confirmed, be by far the worst reported use of poison gas in the two-year-old civil war." Shortly after 9 a.m. ET, the wire service said activists were claiming that nearly 500 people had died. "If confirmed," Reuters added, it would be "by far the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war."

This news comes as a U.N. team is in Syria to investigate earlier alleged uses of chemical weapons.

The BBC's Naomi Grimley adds that opposition groups have released "distressing pictures [that] show children lying limp in the arms of adults" and adults being hosed down, allegedly to wash away chemicals. But, she says, those images haven't been independently verified.

According to CNN, "the explosions took place in eastern and western Ghouta, rebel strongholds that the regime has for more than a year been desperately trying to take back. They don't want rebels pushing into the capital."

British Foreign Secretary William Hague says in a statement released by his office that he is "deeply concerned by reports that hundreds of people, including children, have been killed in airstrikes and a chemical weapons attack on rebel-held areas near Damascus."

Hague also says that:

"These reports are uncorroborated and we are urgently seeking more information. But it is clear that if they are verified, it would mark a shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Those who order the use of chemical weapons, and those who use them, should be in no doubt that we will work in every way we can to hold them to account. I call on the Syrian Government to allow immediate access to the area for the UN team currently investigating previous allegations of chemical weapons use. The U.K. will be raising this incident at the UN Security Council."

Colombia. The drug trade. Multiple plane crashes, drive-by shootings, Peace Corps hippies who peddle drugs, and an actual hippo on the loose. Despite all of that, there's actually not much plot to this novel. This is more of a metaphysical detective story where cause and effect can be difficult to pin down — a book where the events that matter most occur inside the characters.

The Sound of Things Falling, by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, takes place in and around Colombia's capital, Bogota, in the years that buffer the bloom of the drug business and the rise of kingpins like Pablo Escobar.

We begin in the 1990s. Bogota is cosmopolitan but cold, weary from so much corruption and crime. People don't trust one another, particularly strangers. Everyone's got a secret, including some whoppers, and the book at first seems to function like a potboiler — only one that's set to simmer, which is too bad.

When we first meet our narrator, Antonio, he's a junior law professor. He kills time in a pool hall where he meets a mysterious stranger, Ricardo Laverde. The more Antonio learns about Ricardo's past, the more he's intrigued. Turns out Ricardo is a pilot, just out of a prison. Why he was jailed, though, he won't say.

Then, tragedy strikes. Antonio and Ricardo are attacked by some guys on motorcycles for no obvious reason. Ricardo is killed. Antonio recovers his health, but not his confidence. Fear takes hold. The only way to get better, or so it seems, is to pause his life — his job, his family — and figure out why he and Ricardo were shot.

From there, our pseudo-gumshoe's quest goes in two directions: backward into Ricardo's history, and forward into its consequences. Our focus is drawn to offbeat particulars — not the kilos a trafficker moved, but how many elephants he kept in his zoo. Or how a single assassination can make headlines, but it's those headlines that terrorize a nation. In Vasquez's hands, history is never dead, never doomed to repeat itself — if anything, it's constantly repeating itself and won't shut up.

Vasquez writes, "people of my generation do these things: we ask each other what our lives were like at the moment of those events — almost all of which occurred in the 1980s — which defined or diverted them before we knew what was happening to us."

The Sound of Things Falling is that unique detective story where we're more interested in the narrator's inner life than the mystery surrounding him. Vasquez has taken the psychological novel and made it political. Turned mystery fiction into contemporary history.

I'm usually pretty good at anticipating a book's ending, but not this time. Because there's no fancy trick to how Vasquez wraps up his story. Only a testament to the endurance of flawed, confused, ordinary human souls.

Rosecrans Baldwin is the author of the travel memoir Paris, I Love You but You're Bringing Me Down, which has just come out in paperback.

Read an excerpt of The Sound of Things Falling

What's a baker to do when all foodies can talk about, on both sides of the Atlantic, is the cronut craze, a croissant-doughnut that NPR reported on earlier this year? Simple: Come up with an equally addictive hybrid dessert.

Inspired by the increasing appetite for "mashup" desserts — fusing two calorie- and fat-filled items into one — Britain's Evening Standard newspaper tasked food writer and blogger Victoria Stewart with commissioning a winning dessert combination to rival the cronut.

"We were keen to get something new, as we always try to move the story on a bit," says Stewart.

American baker Bea Vo was tapped because of her background in hybrid desserts. Vo opened the first of her three London bakeries, Bea's of Bloomsbury, in 2008, and she was already beloved by customers for her "duffin," a cake doughnut filled with jam, which she created a few years ago. With a loyal following for her inventive desserts, Vo was given a list of experimental fusion foods to whip up for the Standard.

"One of them was the muffle, a muffin and waffle. We did make one, but the fruit caramelized too quickly," Vo tells The Salt. "The trick to fusion desserts is to bring out the best of both." That's why Vo's invention — the "townie" — has been a huge success. The brownie-tartlet has a gooey center and a crisp outer shell.

"I immediately saw it and thought, 'Why hasn't anyone done that before?' " Vo tells The Salt. She says the fact that brownie dough isn't very wet prevents the shell from getting soggy and also allows for underbaking the brownie to give the center that highly sought-after gooeyness.

But while Vo knew it would work, she didn't expect to sell more than a few dozen. Instead, she sold 800 townies in 10 days and garnered attention from U.S. TV networks. "This is one of those unusual things that really had its own life," she says.

High food prices, a currency in freefall, battered investors and slowing growth: India is facing a host of problems that have taken away the sheen from an economy that's had a decade of mostly strong growth.

Some of those problems are also hitting other key emerging markets, including Brazil, China and Russia. These so-called BRIC countries have been critical to driving the global economy in recent years, and they generally fared better than most other nations during the global economic downturn that hit in 2008.

They are all still growing, but not at rates they have been accustomed to.

Meanwhile, some of the world's developed countries, which were hard hit in recent years, are showing signs of life. The U.S. is growing, and the European Union and Japan are doing a bit better as well.

Here's a look at the shifting economic fortunes:

India

India, Bloomberg noted in an opinion piece, faces "a crisis of credibility." The process of economic reform that began in the 1990s, it said, "has ground to a halt." Corruption, red tape and subsidies are only one part of the problem.

India faces serious structural problems: As Mark Mobius of the investment firm Franklin Templeton told GlobalPost: "The surprising thing is the government doesn't seem to be acting with any degree of urgency."

Brazil

Recent protests reflected the frustrations many felt at rising prices and a slowing economy. The Wall Street Journal reported that Brazil would "remain a drag on the rest of the world for the next few years."

"The economy remains reliant on consumption, mainly fueled by credit, both of which are showing signs of exhaustion. Industry remains stagnant, and, for the last four months, unemployment has crept up from historical lows. Most worryingly, the hefty investments needed to overhaul Brazil's ramshackle infrastructure aren't coming through," the Journal said.

Citing the billions of people worldwide who can't access the Internet, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the leaders of other technology firms are launching an ambitious project to narrow the digital divide Wednesday. The plan focuses on widening access via mobile phones.

"There are huge barriers in developing countries to connecting and joining the knowledge economy," Zuckerberg says. "Internet.org brings together a global partnership that will work to overcome these challenges, including making Internet access available to those who cannot currently afford it."

To accomplish that goal, a website for the Internet.org project lists areas for possible gains, from a proposal to make smartphones more affordable to a push to make mobile devices work in more languages.

Other ideas include making apps and processes more efficient, so the data costs of using a smartphone are lower, and giving mobile phone providers and phone makers incentives to make their products more affordable.

Their goal is to increase the number of people who use the Internet, which is estimated to be more than 2.7 billion this year, according to the United Nations.

"By reducing the cost and amount of data required for most apps and enabling new business models, Internet.org is focused on enabling the next 5 billion people to come online," according to a new release.

This summer, Google has been testing its own plan to help provide Internet access in areas where such services are rare. Called Loon, the project calls for floating antenna-equipped balloons high into the atmosphere.

The new project is launching with the support of Facebook, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung — all of them companies that could eventually profit from the addition of billions of new customers. As smartphone and digital markets in Europe and elsewhere reach a saturation point, developing nations present the biggest chances for growth.

But a push for profits is not the main factor behind the new initiative, Zuckerberg tells The New York Times.

"We're focused on it more because we think it's something good for the world," he says, "rather than something that is going to be really amazing for our profits."

In terms of Internet access, wide disparities exist between different regions and economic tiers. As the "World in 2013" report from the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union states, it's more expensive to get online in a developing country than in a developed one, in relative terms.

Here are some highlights from the report, published in February by the Swiss organization:

In the developing world, 31 percent of the population is online, compared with 77 percent in the developed world.

Europe is the region with the highest Internet penetration rate in the world (75 percent), followed by the Americas (61 percent).

In Africa, 16 percent of people are using the Internet – only half the penetration rate of Asia and the Pacific.

90 percent of the 1.1 billion households not connected to the Internet are in the developing world.

In developing countries, 16 percent fewer women than men use the Internet.

Another finding of that report was that in developing nations, people often pay far less for mobile broadband than for fixed services.

Before it launched the Internet.org project, Facebook's efforts to widen access to the web have included Facebook Zero, a text-only version of its services that has been a hit in Africa. The company has also worked to spread efficient and affordable computing infrastructure through its Open Compute effort.

An Egyptian court has ordered that former President Hosni Mubarak be released from custody while he awaits a retrial on charges related to the killing of protesters during the 2011 protests that led to the toppling of his government, NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Cairo.

Peter adds that even though that case and others related to corruption charges are still active, Mubarak's release would "likely spark anxiety that the military-backed government now in charge is returning Egypt to the authoritarian state it was in before the Arab Spring."

Prosecutors, Peter also reports, have said they won't appeal the court's order. According to Reuters, the judge said prosecutors couldn't challenge the ruling even if they wished: "The decision to release Mubarak issued today ... is final and the prosecution cannot appeal against it," Judge Ahmed el-Bahrawi said.

The BBC adds that reports from Cairo suggest Mubarak may be released as soon as Thursday.

Mubarak, 85, was convicted last year and sentenced to life in prison for not stopping the killing of protesters in 2011. But the court has now said he should not be kept in custody while appealing that verdict.

Soccer fans are strutting in Afghanistan today, after their national team defeated neighboring Pakistan, 3-0, in a friendly match sponsored by FIFA, soccer's governing body. Before Tuesday's match in Kabul, the two teams had not played each other in more than 30 years.

Afghan media relished the win, with the Pajhwok news agency declaring, "Afghanistan lash Pakistan in historic soccer duel."

TOLO News, which televised the game live, noted that it had been a long time since Pakistan's team last visited — and "after today's trouncing, it may be another long wait before they are willing to do so again."

According to the Afghan Premier League, the two national squads last played in 1976, when Afghanistan capped the country's anniversary celebrations with a 1-0 win in Kabul.

NPR's Sean Carberry was at today's game; he filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"Thousands of fans, and hundreds of security forces, packed into the small stadium in Kabul. After a slow start, the Afghan team scored, and then never let Pakistan back into the game.

"Abdullah is a street vendor who paid about three dollars for his ticket.

"'Afghans have suffered 30 years of war,' he says in Dari, 'so we need this kind of entertainment.'

"But Mohammad Yousef Kargar, the coach of the Afghan team, says the game was about more than entertainment.

"'So, one of the prime objectives of this match was to bring two nations together,' he says.

If Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) really wanted to put some positive spin on his birth in Canada, he could point out that none of the first seven presidents were born in the United States either.

Of course, that was because the U.S. didn't exist when presidents from George Washington through Andrew Jackson were born. They were all technically British subjects at birth. Martin Van Buren, born in 1782 in Kinderhook, N.Y., was the first president actually born in the U.S.

In any event, the news that Cruz, who was born in Calgary, Alberta, is renouncing his Canadian citizenship is a reminder that since the Revolutionary War generation of presidents, every president was born in a U.S. state.

[By the way, despite all the birther doubts about President Obama's place of birth in 1961, even if he had been born two years earlier in Hawaii — before Aug. 21, 1959, when Hawaii became a state — he still would've been a citizen of the U.S. Beginning in 1900, those born in the territory of Hawaii were automatically U.S. citizens.]

Cruz's situation rekindles a debate that surfaced during the 2008 presidential election about Sen. John McCain's eligibility to be president. McCain was born to U.S. parents but in the Panama Canal Zone, albeit on a U.S. military base.

A law professor who extensively researched the issue concluded that McCain, though a citizen, technically wasn't eligible to be president under the Constitution. But the consensus was that legally challenging McCain on such grounds would be a waste of time. That didn't stop some from trying.

Like McCain, Cruz is a U.S. citizen by virtue of having at least one parent — in Cruz's case, his mother — who was a citizen.

In that respect, Cruz, a Tea Party favorite, was more fortunate in his parentage, at least in terms of a possible White House run, than some other recent U.S. politicians with national prospects.

Jennifer Granholm, the Democrat and former Michigan governor, was born in Canada to Canadians. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former Republican California governor, was Austrian-born.

Back when he was a popular governor, which seems like a lifetime ago, there was talk of — and even legislation proposed for — a constitutional amendment to allow him or other immigrants to run for president. Schwarzenegger, as we all learned, turned out not to be the best poster boy for that cause.

There are only a few good Shadowhunters left, apparently. In fact, the City of Bones is a catacomb filled with the skeletons of their departed. But that won't be on the final exam, since the movie spends only a few minutes there.

Clary finds herself allied with Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), a pouty blond pretty-boy Shadowhunter who makes her all tingly. That's problematic, since whenever the battling stops so the potential couple can flirt, the dialogue descends from the silly to the downright mortifying. One make-out session actually includes a Demi Lovato love ballad.

Jace and his cohorts live in an invisible Hogwarts-like refuge — impregnable, of course, but only until it isn't. Among the Evil Ones who might come knocking is archvillain Valentine, played by Jonathan Rhys Myers, who hasn't looked so much like David Bowie since he played a Bowie-like rocker in Velvet Goldmine.

Valentine has a thing about blood that's part Satanism, part Nazi eugenics. But to make his sanguinary cocktail, he needs a Grail-like cup that Jocelyn has hidden. Clary, as you will have suspected by now, just might know where it is.

Director Harold Zwart, who did that Karate Kid remake with Will Smith's son, handles this nonsense professionally: The art direction is stylish, the editing dynamic and the special effects respectable. There are even a handful of witty moments. If only Zwart could have handled the mushy stuff without words, City of Bones might have escaped being laughable. If only.

Aside from the giggles induced by the romance-novel bits, the movie's principal hazard is exhaustion. There are too many characters, and too many of them spend too much time morphing into something else. Five more like this? That would be demonic.

The writer Elmore Leonard has died. He was 87 years old and had recently suffered a stroke.

For decades, Leonard — working at the very top of his profession as a crime writer — had been widely acclaimed, and universally read. He published 46 novels, which resulted in countless movie and TV adaptations, including the movies Out of Sight and Get Shorty and the TV series Justified.

Leonard lived in Bloomfield Village, just outside Detroit, and in his library, he kept a copy of every book he ever wrote. Most of them are about robbery and mayhem, people chasing after bags of money, but he started as a Western writer, with Bounty Hunter in 1953. He wrote the first draft by hand — he never stopped doing that — using canary yellow pads that a local printer always made for him:

"And I've been using this paper ever since I left the ad agency where they used these pads," Leonard said in a 2010 interview.

“ People ask me about my dialogue, I say, 'Don't you hear people talking?' That's all I do.

This week, North Carolina's governor signed a new law requiring a state-approved photo ID to cast a vote in a polling place and shortening the period for early voting. The move comes just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which had required large parts of the state to get federal approval before changing voting laws.

Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, says the new law will protect the state from voter fraud. Critics say it reverses crucial reforms designed to help protect the rights of African-Americans, young people and the poor.

NPR's Ailsa Chang visited rural areas of North Carolina to report on how the changes could affect poor minority voters who live there.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie agreed to ease restrictions on medical marijuana for chronically ill children, but he won't go as far as lawmakers would like.

NPR's Joel Rose reports that Christie, a Republican, has rejected part of a bill that would allow young patients access to an ingestible form of marijuana at state-approved dispensaries without the approval of a psychiatrist and pediatrician.

His partial veto sends the bill back to the Democratic-controlled Legislature for approval before it becomes law.

The Associated Press reports:

"Like the 19 other states that allow medical marijuana, New Jersey lets children use it. But unlike all but a few, the state law and regulations currently in place — considered perhaps the most stringent among states that allow medical pot at all — have additional hurdles for young patients. ...

"It attracted broader attention this week when parent Brian Wilson confronted the governor during a campaign stop in a diner. Wilson believes his 2-year-old daughter, Vivian, would benefit by using a certain form and strain of pot for Dravet syndrome, a rare and sometimes deadly form of epilepsy.

"In a moment captured on video that made news shows and websites, Wilson told the governor, 'Please don't let my daughter die.' "

They talked about the Hillary Clinton documentary and miniseries. They talked about how well they're doing raising money. They talked about how they're building a state-of-the-art data mining and voter turnout operation.

Here's what the Republican National Committee members didn't talk about at their summer meeting, but, rather, talked around: their existential need to broaden their base of support, and how so far their traditional base is not exactly embracing the idea.

Perhaps that's understandable. This meeting of the group, any meeting, is at least in part a pep rally for the party faithful, to provide some joy to boost the troops' morale. And the anti-news media resolution certainly provided that.

"We said to the media with a united voice that a network that spends millions of dollars to spotlight Hillary Clinton is a network with an obvious bias, and that's a network that won't be hosting a single Republican primary debate," Chairman Reince Priebus promised. The sustained standing ovation he got at the gathering at the Westin Boston Waterfront hotel was the most exuberant reception of the entire meeting.

(NBC News says it has nothing to do with the entertainment division that's producing its Clinton series. CNN says it's disappointed the GOP didn't withhold judgment until after it had seen the film. In any event, Clinton — the former first lady and secretary of state — has not even announced whether she is running for president.)

In contrast, Priebus won tepid applause after backing into a defense of the party's "Growth and Opportunity" project to bring in more Latinos, African-Americans, young people, unmarried women — pretty much all the groups that overwhelmingly voted Democratic last November. He refuted the idea that reaching out to these groups is tantamount to compromising the party's core values in order to win.

"To those who make those accusations, we don't have time for your divisiveness, either — any more than we have time for the media's games," Priebus said. "If you only want to be a voice of dissent, or if you just want to be angry — if you don't want to be problem solver, then you're putting yourself ahead of the movement."

The defensive tone is probably understandable, given the position Priebus finds himself in. The party establishment has concluded that an electoral strategy relying on overwhelming support from white voters to make up for weak performance with minorities is no longer useful.

Yet these leaders are getting strong resistance from much of their own white, disproportionately southern base of support — particularly because the outreach to Latinos has become entwined with the push for an immigration overhaul. The GOP establishment is having to counter a "missing white voters" theory that posits that minority outreach is not necessary (at least not in the next few election cycles) if the party can instead bring disaffected whites back to the polls.

Publicly, Priebus and others at the three-day meeting say the project, while a long-term endeavor, is on track. They showcase their program to train more Republican women candidates. They have started a "GOP Rising Stars" to highlight non-traditional Republicans.

Privately, other Republicans are less sanguine — and already wondering if it will take another White House loss in 2016 for the party base to accept what they are already certain is demographic inevitability.

Following through on an earlier warning, the Republican National Committee on Friday "unanimously passed a resolution preventing the committee from partnering with CNN and NBC for debates if they don't drop their Hillary Clinton productions ahead of the 2016 presidential election."

"CNN and NBC have shown clear favoritism, and they won't be hosting a single Republican primary debate," said RNC Chairman Reince Priebus.

As our colleague Frank James has written over at It's All Politics, "commotion over a pair of movies that haven't even been made proves, if anything, that the Clintons need not lift a finger to inspire a controversy."

The resolution passed Friday, CBS News writes:

"Marked the culmination of weeks of threats from party chairman Reince Priebus, who wrote a letter to NBC and CNN earlier this month deriding the planned films as a 'thinly veiled attempt at putting a thumb on the scale of the 2016 presidential election.'

"CNN is planning a documentary about Clinton's life and career, while NBC's project is a scripted miniseries. Representatives from both networks have said the projects will not color their news coverage of Clinton's potential candidacy."

Egypt's military-backed rulers are pressing on in their crackdown against the Muslim Brotherhood with the arrest early Tuesday of the group's spiritual leader who had been in hiding near the huge sit-in in support of the country's ousted Islamist president, which security forces violently dispersed a week ago, leaving hundreds dead.

The arrest of Mohammed Badie — the supreme leader of the Brotherhood, the Islamist group from which ousted president Mohammed Morsi hails — followed a chaotic day of bloodshed that saw 25 policemen killed in a militant ambush in Sinai and a court ruling announcing the possibility that the jailed ex-president Hosni Mubarak could walk free later this week.

Mubarak's release could fuel the unrest roiling the country after Morsi, Egypt's first democratically elected president and the autocratic Mubarak's successor, was removed in a military coup on July 3.

Underscoring the growing anger over Morsi's ouster, suspected Islamic militants on Monday ambushed two minibuses carrying off-duty policemen in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, forcing the men to lie on the sand and shooting 25 of them dead.

The brazen daylight attack raised fears that the strategic desert region bordering Israel and the Gaza Strip could be plunged into a full-fledged insurgency.

Badie was captured early Tuesday in an apartment in the eastern Cairo district of Nasr City, according to security officials and state television, very close to where Morsi's supporters held a six-week sit-in protest that was cleared by security forces last Wednesday.

The private ONTV network showed footage of a man the network said was Badie after his arrest. In the footage, a somber looking Badie in an off-white Arab robe, or galabiyah, sits motionless on a sofa as a man in civilian clothes and carrying an assault rifle stands nearby.

Badie and his powerful deputy Khairat el-Shater, who is in custody, go on trial later this month for their alleged role in the killing of eight protesters outside the Brotherhood's Cairo headquarters in June. His arrest is a serious blow to the group at a time when authorities are cracking down on its leaders and mid-ranking officials, detaining scores of them across the country.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Late Monday, the 25 slain police officers were given a funeral with full military honors. The men's coffins, draped in red, white and black Egyptian flags, were jointly carried by army soldiers and policemen, and Egypt's interim President Adly Mansour declared a nationwide state of mourning to mark their deaths.

Mubarak, 85, has been in detention since April 2011, two months after he was ousted in a revolution against his rule.

He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison last year for failing to stop the killing of some 900 protesters in the 18-day uprising. His sentence was overturned on appeal and he is now being retried, along with his security chief and six top police commanders.

Two judicial officials said Mubarak could walk free this week or next after a criminal court on Monday ordered his release in a corruption case in which he and his two sons were accused of embezzling funds for the maintenance of presidential palaces. His sons were ordered kept in custody.

Monday's ruling, along with the fact that Mubarak had previously been ordered released in the killings of the protesters opened the possibility of freedom for the former president, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

There will no longer be any grounds to hold him if a court accepts a petition by his lawyer requesting his release in a third case later this week or next.

But freeing Mubarak, widely hated for widespread abuses and repression during his 29 years in power, during one of the worst bouts of turmoil since his ouster would be a huge risk for the military-backed government.

It could lend credibility to allegations that the mass protests that preceded the July 3 coup that toppled Morsi were the work of Mubarak-era figures searching for a way to reinstate the former regime.

Last week, the military raided two protest camps of Morsi's supporters in Cairo, killing hundreds of people and triggering a wave of violence that has left at least 1,000 people dead.

Human Rights Watch, in a report Monday, accused Egyptian security forces of using excessive force when they moved to clear the larger of the two camps. The New York-based group said the assault amounted to the "most serious incident of mass unlawful killings in modern Egyptian history."

It called on authorities to reverse a recent decision authorizing the use of deadly force by security forces when they come under attack or when key government facilities are assaulted.

The Sinai Peninsula has long been wracked by violence by al-Qaida-linked fighters, some who consider Morsi's Brotherhood to be too moderate, and tribesmen who have used the area for smuggling and other criminal activity. Attacks, especially those targeting security forces, have been on the rise since Morsi's ouster.

Monday's attack targeting the police officers took place near the border town of Rafah in northern Sinai. A few hours later, militants shot to death a senior police officer as he stood guard outside a bank in el-Arish, another city in the largely lawless area, security officials said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack. The United States condemned the slaying of the police officers and repeated its commitment to help Egypt combat terrorism in Sinai. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also denounced the attack.

The Sinai attack came a day after security forces killed 36 detainees during a riot on a prison-bound truck convoy north of Cairo. The killings came as police fired tear gas to free a guard who was trapped in the melee, security officials said.

The government ordered an inquiry into the deaths, which it blamed on armed men allegedly trying to help the 600 Muslim Brotherhood detainees escape. It gave no details.

The Brotherhood blamed military chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and the interior minister for Sunday's killings. The group also called for an international inquiry into the deaths.

The United States said it was troubled by the "suspicious deaths" of the prisoners.

"We call on all Egypt's leaders and the international community to condemn such attacks without equivocation," said Psaki, the State Department spokeswoman.

Amnesty International demanded a "full, impartial and effective" probe into the events.

Morsi has been held in an undisclosed location since his ouster. On Monday, prosecutors ordered his detention for 15 days in connection with allegations that he conspired to kill and torture protesters during mass demonstrations by the opposition outside his presidential palace in December 2012.

When two members of Scion's security force come after her, Paige's talent defends her so powerfully that she inadvertently kills one and drives the other mad. She ends up in Sheol I — a penal colony for voyants set up in the secret city of Oxford, far from London's skyscrapers. "Stone walls, wooden doors. Leaded windows glazed with deep red and amethyst," Shannon writes. Sheol I, Paige discovers, is the home base for a supernatural ruling race of Rephaim, who set up Scion's puppet government 200 years before.

The Rephaim gather the most promising human voyants in once-a-decade harvests they call "bone seasons." These prisoners become slaves. Their Rephaim — Paige calls them the Reph — masters beat them, and feed on their auras and blood.

Paige is claimed by a Reph she calls Warden. He is tall, with heavy lidded yellow eyes and dark honey gold skin. "He was the single most beautiful and terrible thing I'd ever laid eyes on." He is to coach her through a series of deadly battles to become a red-jacket, part of a battalion risking death and mutilation to defend Oxford against the monstrous Emim — "mindless, bestial creatures with a taste for human flesh" — who live outside its walls. Once she moves into Warden's quarters at Magdalen, she discovers he has a clandestine life, and a mysterious kind streak.

Shannon has remarkable talent for world-building. Her imagined parallels to London and Oxford are cunningly layered over the original cities (there are maps) and filled with vivid detail, although the extensive voyant classification system hierarchy grows tedious.

But her most sublime otherworldly creation is the complex, ever evolving, scrappy yet touching Paige Mahoney. Shannon illuminates Paige's growing awareness of the new world she inhabits, and the moral choices she faces, with great empathy. She emphasizes Paige's endearing unwillingness to submit, which draws her into danger time and again. Paige struggles with her gift, which is unstable, not within her conscious control; it seems most powerful when she is defending herself to the death. She dreams of escape. She fights bravely to survive. She protects the weak and rallies furiously against overwhelming force. Paige is a credible hero. I want her to win. And with that, Shannon has me hooked.

Read an excerpt of The Bone Season

When you watch a DVD these days, there's a whole array of extras waiting for you after the movie — commentaries, deleted scenes, special re-creations that add to the experience.

But what if you are a novelist and want to do the same? Could you? Should you?

In her new thriller, author Marisha Pessl mixes traditional literature with elements from the digital world. The book is called Night Film, and it's the fast-moving tale of a relentless journalist trying to unravel the mysterious death of a famous filmmaker's daughter.

But the story doesn't end there.

In the very back of the book, just before the acknowledgements, you'll find instructions to continue the story — with an app. Pessl tells NPR's Audie Cornish that the idea for the app originally came from her need to find a quick way to set up the world of reclusive filmmaker Stanislas Cordova for her readers. "I wanted to have cultural cornerstones that immediately alerted readers to the fact that he was endemic within popular culture as this reclusive cult figure," she says.

I couldn't come near to finishing it; or rather, I probably could, but I knew finishing it would have the same deleterious effect on my future as, say, trying meth. Mike says he sells about 75 orders of PB&J fries a day. I wonder how many of them are sold either to drunk people or to people who immediately decide to go get drunk as soon as they're finished, because they know they have no future.

[The verdict: Delicious, because peanut butter, jelly, and French fries are delicious. But some things are better next to fries than on top of them.]

Sandwich Monday is a satirical feature from the humorists at Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me.

As the school year begins, districts in cities such as Oakland, Fresno and Los Angeles have not gone on a hiring spree.

But they might soon.

California has revamped its school funding formula in ways that will send billions more dollars to districts that educate large numbers of children who are poor, disabled in some way or still learning to speak English.

It's an approach that numerous other states, from New York to Hawaii, have looked into lately. But none has matched the scale of the change now underway in the nation's largest state.

"The trend is toward more and more states providing additional assistance to students with special needs," says Deborah Verstegen, a school finance expert at the University of Nevada, Reno. "California is moving into the forefront with this approach."

It wasn't an easy sell. There was a lot of debate in Sacramento about whether this was a Robin Hood approach, robbing from the rich to give more to the poor.

In the end, however, the old system was so convoluted that no one was willing to defend it.

"The former school finance system had not really been conceptually revised since the early 1970s, when President Reagan was governor of California," says Michael Kirst, president of the California Board of Education. "It had no relationship to student needs."

How It Got That Way

California spends more money on education than other states — not just because of its size, but because of the complex nature of state and local finances there.

Around the country, a significant share of education dollars still comes from local property taxes. In California, though, the state itself picks up a larger-than-average chunk — nearly 60 percent of the total K-12 tab.

Traditionally, Sacramento has not only provided the funds but dictated to districts how they spend big parts of their budget. The state sent out money through more than 40 categorical grant programs, which meant that schools had to spend a certain amount of dollars on a wide variety of specific mandates, from anti-tobacco lessons to reducing class sizes for younger kids.

In addition, the complex funding formula led to lots of neighboring districts with similar student populations somehow receiving vastly different amounts of money. The whole thing had become immensely convoluted over time and "could justifiably be called lunatic," wrote the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

Political Payoff?

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Almost as soon as they started rolling off the assembly lines, automobiles became synonymous with freedom. And in the post-World War II boom our relationship with cars intensified.

It was about horsepower, status, being American, and for young people: rebellion. For generations cars inspired countless songs, books and movies. But now there are signs that our car culture is losing some of its shine.

The iconic 1973 film American Graffiti celebrated the deep relationship between American teen culture and the automobile back in the early 1960s. But that was 40 years ago, and a lot has changed since those days.

Studies show that teenagers are driving less, getting their licenses later, and waiting longer to purchase their first new car. NPR's Sonari Glinton recently hit the streets to find out why, and discovered not having a car or not being able to afford one, has become a lot more common. The negative stigma around not having a car has also seems to have waned.

"My girlfriend drives me everywhere. That sounds sad, and 20 years ago I'd be considered pathetic, but it's almost normal now to be that way," says Mike Clubb, who is in his 20s.

Micheline Maynard, a veteran journalist who's covered automobiles and transportation issues, now oversees the website CurbingCars.com. She tells NPR's Don Gonyea that one of the most cited reasons behind this trend of young people waiting to get a car or their driver's license is simply not having the time.

"Many states have now changed teen driving laws, so you have to spend a certain amount of time in the car with a parent," Maynard says. "And people just shrug and say, 'You know what, I don't need to get a license right now.' "

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The SEC has launched an investigation of JPMorgan Chase's operations in China, reportedly looking into whether the investment bank hired the children of high-ranking Chinese government officials in an effort to secure business.

The Wall Street Journal, quotes from a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that says U.S. regulators are investigating "business relationships with certain clients".

The New York Times writes that in one instance, JPMorgan reportedly hired a former Chinese banking regulator's son who later became chairman of the China Everbright Group: "After the chairman's son came on board, JPMorgan secured multiple coveted assignments from the Chinese conglomerate, including advising a subsidiary of the company on a stock offering, records show."

In another example, JPMorgan's Hong Kong office hired the daughter of a Chinese railway official. The official "was later detained on accusations of doling out government contracts in exchange for cash bribes, the government document and public records show."

"The former official's daughter came to JPMorgan at an opportune time for the New York-based bank: The China Railway Group, a state-controlled construction company that builds railways for the Chinese government, was in the process of selecting JPMorgan to advise on its plans to become a public company, a common move in China for businesses affiliated with the government. With JPMorgan's help, China Railway raised more than $5 billion when it went public in 2007."

Can there be any experience more kaleidoscopic in its emotions, more full of hopes and fears and just plain confusions, than that of coming to America? I'm no expert, certainly — but my research on immigration for my recent novel, as well as my own family history, points to a process of continual surprises, endless adjustments, and, at times, exhausting isolation. Old habits crash up against new ideas; the desire for a "clean slate" is betrayed by the inevitable baggage of a former life. The three books in this list (two classic and one modern), besides simply being fantastic reads, lay bare the complexities of immigrant lives in all their panoramic variety.