States Question What To Do With Surging Tax Revenue

Across the country, state budgets are back in the black after years of belt-tightening and spending cuts. From California to Florida, in nearly every state, the economic recovery has produced a surge in tax revenue.

For governors and state legislators, that's produced a new question: how to spend the money.

The past three years have not been easy ones for elected officials. Nearly every state requires them to produce a balanced budget. And with declining revenue from sales, property and income taxes, that has meant big spending cuts.

Teen Sexual Assault: Where Does The Conversation Start?

The narrative is become all too familiar: accusations of sexual assault, followed by bullying of the victims on social media.

Iran's Political Scene Is Sketchy For Cartoonists

Iranian newspapers are rife with cartoons. They are a tradition, and play a big role voicing criticism of the country's authoritarian regime.

Increasingly, though, Iranian cartoonists have been imprisoned, received death threats, or gone into exile because of their work.

Omid Memarian was a journalist in Iran. Arrested in 2004 for his writing, he was taken to prison, tortured and forced into a confession of guilt on national television. He fled the country to continue to work as a journalist in the United States.

New Cuban Sounds Rooted In Tradition From 'Global Village'

World music DJ Betto Arcos returns to weekends on All Things Considered to share what he's been spinning on Global Village, the show he hosts on KPFK in Los Angeles. This week, Arcos brings some of his favorite new Cuban music. His picks include Pedrito Martinez's convergence of Cuban and flamenco rumbas, an ancestral tale from The Creole Choir of Cuba, Tiempo Libre's amalgam of jazz, funk, and R&B and Yunior Terry's nod to salsa.

Copyright 2013 NPR.

Anti-Drug PSAs: Do They Work?

The U.S. has spent millions of dollars since the 1980s on anti-drug ads. But research shows that some of these older public service announcements might be counterproductive. Now that the ads are shifting to reach teens who want to rebel, new studies show they may actually be more effective.

First He Invented The Phone. Then, Bell Left A Voice Message

As the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell is credited with bringing countless voices to our ears. And now, for the first time, here he is imploring us to hear his own voice:

The sound is scratchy. You have to strain to decipher it, but the words are clear. They're from Bell's lips, recorded in 1885 but unveiled just last week by the Smithsonian.

"It lets us know what the past was really like. It fills in a gap for people," says Shari Stout, collections manager at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

When Sculpting Cedar, This Artist Is Tireless And Unsentimental

Ursula von Rydingsvard makes huge sculptures out of red cedar. The 70-year-old is one of the few women working in wood on such a scale.

Her pieces are in the permanent collections of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art. And now they're also part of a new show at Manhattan's Museum of Arts and Design. It's called "Against the Grain" — a phrase that could just as well describe the sculptor's life and career.

For Some Young Latinos: Donkey Jaws And Latino Roots

We love hearing stories of how you straddle all the different cultures in your life. That's why we're sharing this report, about retro-acculturation, from our friends at Latino USA.

The process of integrating into mainstream America is a complex one if you are an immigrant. Often, people lose touch with their country of origin.

But for people like Marco Polo Santiago, the reverse is also true. Second, third and fourth-generation immigrants are seeking out their roots and creating a trend of their own.

House Leadership Crashes Into Outside Hurdles On Bills

The House was set to vote this week on a bill modifying the president's health care law. The Republican bill was supported by the leadership, but ran into trouble and was pulled from the floor before the scheduled vote.

It's an example of the kind of obstacles Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, faces in getting legislation through the House. In many recent cases, his problem hasn't been the Democrats as much as members of his own party, backed by proudly conservative outside groups.

Unfinished FEMA Flood Maps Put Sandy Victims In Limbo

Superstorm Sandy pummeled the East Coast six months ago, and, as with other natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was there from day one, finding people temporary shelter and later supporting rebuilding efforts.

FEMA also has a lesser-known role. It oversees the creation of flood maps, which model the risk of flooding in different areas during storms. These maps are also used to set building codes and flood insurance rates. In New York and New Jersey, FEMA is updating those maps, and so far many homeowners don't like what they are seeing.