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America's exit strategy in Afghanistan is to have Afghan forces take the lead in fighting for their country. But too often these days, the job still falls to U.S. troops.

A senior officer in Afghanistan tells NPR that Americans continue to coddle Afghan forces and that this must stop. Tough love is in, the officer says. He says the Afghan forces are far more capable than the U.S. estimates and have simply grown accustomed to the U.S. doing everything for them.

That pretty much sums up the situation in southern Afghanistan earlier this year.

The number of boys locked up for crimes has dropped over the past decade, but the number of young women detained in jails and residential centers has moved in the other direction.

Despite its status as a device that defines the modern age, the television has its roots in the 19th century, when scientists found ways to transmit images and sound. Even the word "television," combining Greek and Latin roots to mean "far-sight," stems from the 1900 world's fair.

Senegal is awash with rams — stunning, immaculately groomed specimens, each with its own name and colorful, custom-made collar and tinkling sheep bell.

Everywhere you go, you hear "baa, baa" — sheep in their dozens, or alone, bleating from up above on a veranda or in a specially created enclosure in a backyard.

Many of the rams are bathed lovingly in the waves of the Atlantic Ocean, on the fringes of the capital, Dakar. The sheep are fed the best of everything and proudly paraded up and down the beaches.

Two weeks after Matthew Spencer got a spinal injection for his chronic back pain, he felt "not quite right." Nothing too specific: worsening headache, nausea.

Then he saw a TV report on a recall of contaminated steroid medication used for back pain.

"I thought, well, I don't know if I had that medicine or not, but maybe I'd better go check it out," Spencer says.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

The news out of Syria these days is a barrage of images: destroyed buildings, gruesome casualties, weeping mothers. It's both disturbing and inspiring to a thriving movement of Syrian songwriters, rappers, poets, writers, graffiti artists and actors trying to cope with what's happening around them.

NPR's Kelly McEvers recently attended a performance by Syrian artists in Beirut and sent this report.

KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: It starts in a theater...

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)