Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: I'm Ari Shapiro traveling with the Romney campaign in Daytona Beach, Florida. Ted Bickish and his wife Gina embody the two big problems at the center of Florida's economy. Ted lost his job when the economy collapsed. The only work he could find was in Virginia. They couldn't relocate because their house was underwater. And he couldn't afford to pass up the job either. So now...

TED BICKISH: Well, I go up there for about three weeks to a month at a time, and then I come home for a week.

With the Obama and Romney campaigns blasting away on Twitter, Facebook and all kinds of social media, will their efforts to sway voters through the Internet really work? Weekend Edition host Scott Simon explores the issues with Daniel Sieberg from Google's politics and elections team.

Placido Domingo is one of the most influential people in classical music. During a 50-year career, he's played more than 140 roles, conducted more than 450 operas, and won just about every award that a human being can win in opera and life.

In January 2007, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California was sworn in as the speaker of the House of Representatives — and became the first woman to hold that position. She is currently the House minority leader.

We've invited Pelosi to play a game about men breaking gender barriers — three questions about men who've gone where no man has gone before.

"James Moody is the most beloved jazz musician in the world," reedman Paquito D'Rivera says.

These may be strong words, but D'Rivera is far from alone in his appreciation of the tenor saxophonist, who died in 2010. On the bandstand, Moody was universally admired for his musicality, his generosity — he gave away mouthpieces, saxophones and, once, even the coat off his back — and his ability to illuminate any room with his personal warmth.

For the first time in nearly a generation, Arizona voters will elect a new senator. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl is retiring after 18 years. His ideological successor is Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, and a lot of people expected Flake to have an easy time of it.

But recent polls suggest Democrat Richard Carmona — a former surgeon general and a Hispanic — has a shot at winning. The race has become heated, and the airwaves are filled with brutal ads.

Many have had good fun at the expense of Big Tex, the 52-foot cowboy that burnt down in Dallas today.

But Big Tex was an institution, an icon of the State Fair of Texas, as big and bold as the great state itself.

NPR's John Burnett, a Dallas native, remembered him on All Things Considered today. He told this story:

Grizzly Bear began in 2004 as a bedroom project for Ed Droste. By 2006, Droste had a full band alongside him: Daniel Rossen, Christopher Bear and Chris Taylor. They released Yellow House the same year, but it was 2009's Veckatimest that propelled the group to worldwide fame.

Circumcisions have been virtually suspended in Germany for the past four months. The practice was effectively banned after a regional court in Cologne ruled that circumcision amounts to assault.

That controversial ruling this summer alienated the country's 120,000 registered Jews and 4 million Muslims, who saw it as a violation of religious freedom. It also fueled accusations of intolerance in a country still haunted by its Nazi past.