Talk of the Nation

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. After 32 years, the mystery has been solved. A coroner in the fourth inquest into the death of an Australian couple's baby declared the dingo did in fact take the baby. You know a bit about the case if you saw the Meryl Streep movie "Cry in the Dark."

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

NPR's Pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman, recently spent several weeks in Afghanistan following the last major combat offensive in the region. He and Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security talk about the situation on the ground just two years shy of the withdrawal deadline.

Egypt's Supreme Court declared recent elections illegal and ordered the Islamist-led parliament dissolved. The decision, by judges who were appointed by former dictator Hosni Mubarak, escalates the power struggle between the military government and the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists.

In a recent column, Ben Zimmer wrote, "Is there any word currently more contested in our culture than marriage?" As the debate about same-sex marriage continues, he examines the definition of marriage and the ways advocates and opponents of same-sex unions use language to advance their positions.

Four states held Senate primaries Tuesday. Voters there set up several races that will likely play key roles in deciding which party controls the Senate after the November election. NPR's Mara Liasson Las Vegas Sun columnist Jon Ralston and Richmond Times Dispatch columnist Jeff Schapiro discuss.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan.

Last Saturday night, Manny Pacquiao moved quicker across the ring in Las Vegas, landed more punches than Timothy Bradley and many more heavy blows. Fans, experts, the TV commentators all agreed the man widely considered the best boxer in the world dominated the fight. And then the judges shocked everyone, and Pacquiao's amazing seven-year win streak was over. Controversial decisions are hardly new to boxing or to sports in general.

At 15, Mia Schaikewitz was a star on her high school swim team, when a blood vessel ruptured in her spine and left her paralyzed from the waist down. In 1992, Auti Angel was a professional hip hop dancer when the impact of a car crash severed her spinal cord and left her a paraplegic.

Schaikewitz and Angel are two of four friends featured on the new Sundance Channel reality show Push Girls, which hopes to defy the stereotypes of women in wheelchairs.

NPR's Deborah Amos followed a team of U.N. observers in Syria in June before returning to Damascus, and has been reporting on the latest developments in the region. NPR's Neal Conan speaks with Amos about her experiences reporting from Damascus and what she's seen on the ground.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener feedback on previous Talk of the Nation programs, including shows on summer jobs for teens, the complications of claiming Native American ancestry and blues guitarist Buddy Guy.

In the Washington Post, Isabel Sawhill argued then-Vice President Dan Quayle was right when he blasted Murphy Brown for encouraging single motherhood. Sawhill, of the Brookings Institution, and Philip Cohen, sociology professor at the University of Maryland, talk about single motherhood.

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NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan.

Exits are ubiquitous; long or short, grand or modest, we've all left something, from resigning from a long-held position to waving goodbye to a friend after lunch. In Exit: The Endings That Set Us Free, author Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot explores endings through the stories of people in transition.

Too often "we tend to ignore and diminish endings," she writes, while celebrating beginnings. Instead, we should "develop the habit of marking the small goodbyes to help us master the larger farewells."