All Things Considered

It's clear Chris Thile has an ear for music: The 31-year-old mandolinist, best known for his bands Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, has been playing music his entire life.

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The writer Nora Ephron has died. Over the course of six decades, she chronicled the lives of women in newsprint, in books, on the stage and on screen. She was 71 years old, and died of complications from a blood disorder. She's best known for romantic comedies such as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "When Harry Met Sally," but she also brought to the big screen Karen Silkwood and Julia Child.

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At long last, big-time college football has a playoff, if you want to call four teams a playoff. Today, a committee of university presidents agreed to a system that replaces the current Bowl Championship Series beginning in 2014.

NPR's sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins me now. And, Tom, this is something that college football fans have wanted for years. President Obama has said he wants this championship game. What do you know about the deal?

Congressional leaders on Tuesday said they were close to a deal to solve two big issues facing lawmakers — student loan interest rates and federal highway funding.

Both issues with looming deadlines have high stakes for middle-income Americans: If Congress fails to reach agreements by this weekend, the federal highway program would come to a halt, and student loan interest rates would double, to 6.8 percent.

Student Loans

President Obama has been hammering on the issue of student loans for days.

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This Thursday, when the Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in the health care case, many fingers will be anxiously clicking on the website ScotusBlog. It'll be live blogging starting at 8:45 in the morning, even though opinions don't come down until 10.

ScotusBlog was started in 2003 by lawyer Tom Goldstein, who's argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And he joins me to talk about his website and how it works.

Tom, welcome back.

TOM GOLDSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

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A group of young musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area is taking a journey to explore the roots of jazz. The Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble is in Cuba right now. The ensemble has a long history and a long list of all-star alumni.

Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr, of member station KDFC, spoke with some of the musicians before they left for Cuba.

JEFFREY FREYMANN-WEYR, BYLINE: Twenty eager young musicians rehearse "Cubauza," a piece that combines bebop with Afro-Cuban rhythms.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CUBAUZA")

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

At this week's Olympic trials, middle distance runner Jenny Simpson will find out if she's going to the Olympics. Simpson is the current world champion in the 1,500 meters, but as we hear from NPR's Allison Keyes, she's had some setbacks recently, and she and her coach are making last-minute tweaks to her training routine.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

What do your friends see on Facebook when they look for your email address? It might not be what you think. In the past few days, Facebook automatically changed the email contacts it displays without clearly notifying users about what it was doing.

As NPR's Laura Sydell reports, lots of people on Facebook are not happy.