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Hollywood blockbusters usually do well in China. But last year, Lost in Thailand, a scrappy, slapstick comedy that cost less than $5 million to make, raked in $200 million in just seven weeks. It's now the highest-grossing Chinese film ever. It begins a limited run in the U.S. on Friday.

It's been said that to properly understand a magician, you have to get right on stage and watch how the act is done. NPR's Bob Mondello had that chance once with card whiz Ricky Jay — subject of the new film Deceptive Practice — and has a few words about how the showman works.

As Colorado lawmakers debate rules regulating recreational marijuana use, one big question looms: how to charge taxes that will fund oversight of retail pot businesses. The tax requires a statewide vote. If it fails, some worry that underfunded enforcement will invite the feds to shut recreational pot down entirely.

Years of war have overtaxed Gaza's hospitals, making it tough for kidney patients to get good treatment. Thanks to help from British doctors, Gaza surgeons are now being trained to perform kidney transplants. They hope to help ease the huge demand for dialysis, but transplants have their own cost.

The first pope from the New World must now confront some old problems. He's begun his first full day as head of the church by slipping out of the Vatican to visit an ancient basilica. There, he quietly prayed with priests.

Across Russia, pancakes and butter abound as the country marks a weeklong celebration before the start of Russian Orthodox Lent. Pagan in origin, Maslenitsa calls for plenty of eating, sledding, merrymaking — and even organized fistfights.

In Germany, a new political party has cropped up with one sole aim: doing away with the euro. Unlike past anti-euro parties in Europe, this one is no fringe group. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports they are banking on German frustration over bailouts of eurozone countries to propel them into office in national elections this fall.

Private security contractors were involved in a number of controversial shootings in Iraq during the war. With U.S. troops gone, American diplomats will be depending on up to 5,000 security contractors to keep them safe.

An Iraq war veteran who is suspected of killing a park ranger has been found dead in a snowy stream at Washington's Mount Rainier National Park. The park had been closed since Sunday while authorities searched for Benjamin Barnes.

Bandleader and producer Johnny Otis, who launched and then nurtured the careers of many of R&B's greatest singers, died Tuesday at his home near Los Angeles. He was 90. Fresh Air remembers Otis with excerpts from a 1989 interview.