NPR News

I'll always love big musicals. Shows like Hairspray and Anything Goes just want to make me happy, and if they don't change my life, then so what? There are worse things than smiling for two hours while 35 hotties nail a synchronized tap number on the prow of a boat.

But sometimes, I love a musical that makes me come to it. Instead of singing in my face, a show like that whispers in my ear, giving me a private message to consider on the way home.

The needle and syringe are icons of modern medicine.

This week, Ken Rudin and Ron Elving discuss Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker criticizing the president's tactics on Bain Capital, the Tea Party's goals in next week's Texas Senate primary, and general dysfunction in D.C. In other words, it's the Booker "Tea" Washington edition of the podcast.

For South Sudan, 2011 was monumental. After decades of war, South Sudan became its own nation.

But as NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton has told us, that process of emerging from a conflict with its northern neighbor that left it poor and isolated, has been fraught with more fighting.

Five years in prison. Then five years of probation and wearing an electronic monitoring device. The shame of being a registered sex offender. Not being able to get a job. His dream of playing in the NFL destroyed, possibly forever.

Brian Banks, now 26, has gone through all that.