All Things Considered Sunday

In order to salvage its common currency, Europe is working toward a tighter fiscal union. That will require a tradeoff — sovereignty for economic stability. Over the next two days European Union leaders will try to come to an agreement to boost growth.

It will be weeks — maybe longer — before the one part of Arizona's immigration law the Supreme Court left standing goes into effect. A lower court has to remove its injunction before local police are required to ask about immigration status. But as NPR's Ted Robbins reports, there's already been a backlash.

When the Supreme Court announces its long-anticipated decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, all eyes will be on the so-called individual mandate. That's the section of the law that requires most Americans to either have health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014.

Florida is a perennial battleground state in presidential elections. And within Florida, the area around Orlando is a battlefield where the terrain has changed radically.

It used to be a tossup. But four years ago, Barack Obama won in Orlando — or technically in Orange County — with 59 percent of the vote, a margin of almost 80,000 votes.

What happened in Orlando?

There were several things: The Democrats registered a lot of black voters. Obama ran well among independents. But the biggest difference was the number of new arrivals to the area.

Unemployment rates among veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are higher that their non-veteran counterparts, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki speaks with host Melissa Block about the challenges for veterans in today's job market.

It's clear Chris Thile has an ear for music: The 31-year-old mandolinist, best known for his bands Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, has been playing music his entire life.

The astronomer Carl Sagan made it his life's work to engage the public in the world of science and exploration. The Library of Congress announced Wednesday that it's acquired his personal papers. Host Audie Cornish talks with Ann Druyan, Sagan's widow.

Clementines and pelvic anatomy are two things you probably wouldn't ever talk about in the same sentence, unless you're Pamela Andreatta.

Andreatta, a medical educator at the University of Michigan Medical School, knows all about how people learn. And lately, she's been spending a lot of time scrutinizing how residents are taught to do minimally invasive surgery.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

The writer Nora Ephron has died. Over the course of six decades, she chronicled the lives of women in newsprint, in books, on the stage and on screen. She was 71 years old, and died of complications from a blood disorder. She's best known for romantic comedies such as "Sleepless in Seattle" and "When Harry Met Sally," but she also brought to the big screen Karen Silkwood and Julia Child.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

At long last, big-time college football has a playoff, if you want to call four teams a playoff. Today, a committee of university presidents agreed to a system that replaces the current Bowl Championship Series beginning in 2014.

NPR's sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins me now. And, Tom, this is something that college football fans have wanted for years. President Obama has said he wants this championship game. What do you know about the deal?