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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

And this is President Obama's big night in Charlotte. After two days of impassioned speeches by others, making the case for his re-election, Mr. Obama takes the stage later tonight. And this hour we begin in Charlotte with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Hi, Mara.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.

Audie Cornish talks with various people attending the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., about what they think President Obama needs to say in his speech Thursday night.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.

Four years ago, then-Senator Barack Obama took the stage in Denver to accept his party's presidential nomination. He spoke of overcoming partisanship and economic turmoil. Well, tonight, President Obama will do it again with four years of experience under his belt. Since taking office, he has struggled to overcome a crushing recession, a weak recovery and a deeply divided electorate.

NPR's Scott Horsley has this story on the path the president has traveled.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish at the Democratic National Convention.

All week the conversation here has been about jobs. But other than a primetime appearance by Costco's co-founder, big business supporters have been MIA. I did find a meeting of progressive business leaders, where I met a CEO named Kim Jordan.

For an egregious example of a silly product placement, look no further than the CW show The Vampire Diaries, where a character actually says "I Bing'd it" of a search online. But believe it or not, product placement can actually be serious and socially conscious.

Take the Fox comedy Raising Hope. Earlier this year, the show's main character, who'd been a teen mom, caught a high school girl in bed with her boyfriend. "I'm gonna show you where this can lead to!" she screeched. "I'm your ghost of teen pregnancy future!"

In this installment of World Cafe's Latin Roots series, Raul Pacheco of the Grammy-winning band Ozomatli talks with host David Dye about how politics influence music. They've certainly affected Pacheco's music, as Ozomatli has been politically driven since its inception. The band's members started playing together 16 years ago, when they were working for the Peace and Justice Center of Los Angeles, and were asked to play for picketers during a strike.

San Francisco is trying a new tactic to fight AIDS. Health workers are aggressively testing people for HIV and then immediately putting those who test positive on potent antiretroviral drugs.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel. And we begin this hour with a bold move in Europe. The head of the European Central Bank today unveiled a plan that he said will help contain the continent's grinding debt crisis. Mario Draghi announced the ECB will step up its purchases of government bonds. The point is to bring down interest rates in Spain, Italy and other heavily indebted countries.

Last month we heard that a farmer in Kentucky was feeding his cattle discarded chocolate because corn was too expensive. Things are getting weird, we thought.

Ozomatli is a genre-spanning, Grammy-winning band whose sound draws from Latin influences like salsa and cumbia, as well as hip-hop, rock, reggae and funk. Its many members are political activists who met while working with the Peace and Justice Center of Los Angeles; their first performance was for picketers during a strike.

The northern Syrian city of Aleppo has been the site of the bloodiest recent fighting in that country's brutal war, and we're still getting only glimpses of the violence.

But GlobalPost has a striking video of a devastating bombing that killed an entire family — except for a 1-year-old boy who survived without any serious injuries.