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When the swirling, howling winds of the 1930s Dust Bowl gobbled up farmland from Texas to the Dakotas, the federal government planted 100 million trees to act like a giant windbreak. It worked. But now, after years of drought, those old trees are dying.

China runs the largest censorship machine in human history, researchers say. But Harvard studies of Internet postings in China suggest that even vitriolic criticisms of leaders and state policies are not what officials want to censor.

The website Groklaw, which for 10 years demystified complex issues involving technology and the law, is shutting down. Editor Pamela Jones writes that she can't run the site without email, and that since emails' privacy can't be guaranteed, she can no longer do the site's work.

There are many ways to look at civil war: ethnic factions, economic divides and religions differences. But increasingly, some say we should also look at climate change as a factor as well, as it is often what forces internal migrations in nations already simmering with ethnic and sectarian tensions.

Guest host Celeste Headlee and editor Ammad Omar crack open the listener inbox for feedback. This week, violin lovers say a conversation about aggressive parenting hit the wrong notes.

Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, breast-feed their offspring for several years. Some baby orangutans nurse until they are 7 years old. Researchers found a way to test ancient teeth for clues about when humans cut nursing short.

How hard can it be to measure the health of a population? Oregon is finding out it's difficult to decide even what to track. But the state received almost $2 billion in federal funds to improve the health of its residents and to cut costs. The state faces substantial fines if it can't prove it has done the job.

When ABC canceled the daytime soaps All My Children and One Life to Live in 2011, millions of fans suddenly found themselves left without their daily guilty pleasure. Both shows are relaunching Monday, but they won't be on any TV channel — the soaps are going online.

The Justice Department says about half of all international criminal organizations have links to extremist groups, such as Hezbollah, the Taliban and FARC rebels in Colombia. But diffuse priorities are hindering U.S. efforts to combat this growing problem of transnational, organized crime.

While the ATF is a fraction of the size of its sister agency, the FBI, it runs the show when it comes to tracing weapons at crime scenes and investigating bombs and arson. But the agency has been without a permanent director for almost seven years.