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The Zika epidemic has prompted renewed debate over the controversial Helms Amendment, which prohibits use of U.S. government money to fund abortions in other countries.

At a debate Tuesday night, Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith apologized to anyone offended by her "public hanging" remark. Her African-American opponent Mike Espy said she reinforces stereotypes about the state.

U.S. GDP shrank in the first few months of the year, but the economy may be sturdier than it looks.

The island's rich biodiversity is increasingly threatened by slash-and-burn agriculture and climate change. A leading example is the greater bamboo lemur, whose numbers have dwindled due to a shrinking supply of the fresh bamboo they depend on.

King's 1982 novel was set in the year 2025, in a world with widespread poverty, mass surveillance, and giant corporations. The newest film version loses some of its critique.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports from Goma, Zaire that shelling forced the suspension of the first attempt to deliver aid to the city today. Relief groups stopped passing out food after four shells slammed into the city. The shells presumably were fired by Rwandan Hutu rebels holed up in a refugee camp outside Goma. The attack came after Zairean Tutsi rebels--who control Goma--fired on an unidentified plane which flew over the city. The incidents underline how hard it will be to organize a massive aid effort for the one million mostly Rwandan refugees stranded by the recent fighting in eastern Zaire.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports from Kigali that Zairean Tutsi rebels today declared a unilateral three-week ceasefire. The guerrillas say the truce is designed to give more than one million Rwandan Hutu refugees in Zaire a chance to go home. In the past two weeks, the rebels have captured all of the main cities along Zaire's border with Burundi and Rwanda, and foreign relief agencies have evacuated their staffs. There is little hope the refugees will return to Tutsi-controlled Rwanda, and relief groups say shortages of food and medicine could soon lead to mass starvation and epidemics among the refugees.

A sound montage of some of the voices in this past week's news, including Roger Adams, pardon attorney at the Justice Department, on the pardons of Marc Rich and Pincus Green; Captain Tom Kyle, deputy chief of staff of the US Pacific Fleet, on the collision of the USS Greeneville with a Japanese fishing trawler; Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan before the Senate Banking Committee; William H. Gates, Sr. and Representative Jennifer Dunn (Republican, Washington) on the possible elimination of the estate tax; Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold, of the US Marine Corps, on Friday's air attack of Iraqi defense installations; and President George W. Bush during his visit to the ranch of Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Jennifer Snyder plays the puzzle with puzzlemaster Will Shortz and NPR's Ayesha Rascoe.

Linda talks with Miami Herald reporter Donna Leinwand (LINE wand) about the events leading to the arrest of Kathleen Bush. Bush's 8 year old daughter, Jennifer, captured national attention as a literal poster child for families without medical insurance. She had been hospitalized 200 times and had had 40 surgeries. Her mother, claiming poverty due to medical bills, had received donations for her care. Authorities now believe Bush has made her daugher sick deliberately. They believe the mother suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological condition causing a parent strives to get attention by making his or her child sick.