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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Mitt Romney stands by his decision not to release more than two years of his tax returns. Democrats keep hammering away, suggesting the Republican presidential candidate has something to hide. Well, last week, the website Gawker released over 900 pages of financial documents related to Bain Capital. That's the private equity firm Romney co-founded.

"If the Congo was the heart of darkness, this is the spleen."

That's how Danish guerrilla filmmaker Mads Brugger introduces the Central African Republic, the focus of his hidden-camera documentary The Ambassador.

The president of Colombia admitted today that his government and the country's biggest rebel group have engaged in "exploratory talks." The public admission could set the stage for peace talks to end one of the world's longest armed conflicts.

From Bogota, NPR's Juan Forero filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"President Juan Manuel Santos, in a brief televised address, said talks had taken place with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

In August 2004, Tracy Rittel was in a fatal car accident near Fargo. While Tracy battled for her life, her family had trouble finding a place to stay near the hospital.

From that experience, the Rittels created Tracy's Sanctuary House in Bismarck for families who find themselves in a similar situation. Since 2005, some 1,500 families have used the home.

A dozen volunteers "put their hearts and souls into making sure the house is kept up," says Tracy's daughter Kelsey Zottnick.

In The Real Romney, Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman examine Mitt Romney's political rise since 1994, when he ran for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts. They explain how Romney shifted from supporting abortion rights to heavily courting social conservatives in the 2008 Republican primary.

Conductor, pianist and peace advocate Daniel Barenboim first recorded all five of Beethoven's piano concertos in 1967. Barenboim, a brash and fantastically smart 24-year-old, was paired with an elder statesman, conductor Otto Klemperer. There was real magic in that collaboration, yielding recordings that still set a benchmark.

Muddying the waters separating indie rock, country and Southern blues, Diamond Rugs formed in Nashville as an all-star music collective assembled by John McCauley of Deer Tick.