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Seventy years ago, in the middle of World War II, a couple of hundred miles north of Toulouse, Claude Lanzmann was a high school student — and an assimilated French Jew. Every day he faced the risk of arrest.

When Lanzmann was a teenager, both he and his father independently joined the Communist Resistance. He writes about that in his newly translated memoir, The Patagonian Hare.

Tayari Jones has written for McSweeney's, The New York Times and The Believer. Her most recent book is Silver Sparrow.

Like many Americans, I have been glued to the television eager for details about the tragic murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. I am not sure what I hoped to discover, as each new piece of evidence is more disturbing than the last.

The University of Southern Mississippi announced that it took disciplinary action against five of its pep band members today.

The five students were involved in one of the more controversial moments of the NCAA tournament, when they chanted "Where's your green card?" as Angel Rodriguez, a Latino player from Kansas State, took a free throw.

It's spring, and that means rodeo season is ramping up, especially in the American West. Some professional cowboys will soon be competing almost every night in bull riding, calf roping or steer wrestling.

But along with the trophy buckles and cash prizes, cowboys also bring home injuries — some of them severe. Some rodeo events are more dangerous, and less lucrative, than football and other contact sports.

An Unsteady Paycheck

The 2012 Houston Rodeo begins with a prayer and the national anthem, followed by the first event: calf roping.

Maybe Robert De Niro didn't know. Or maybe he forgot.

But when the superstar actor joked at a New York Obama campaign fundraiser Monday evening which Michelle Obama attended about the country not being ready for a white first lady, he got into dangerous territory for President Obama.

According to an Obama campaign pool report, De Niro deadpanned:

"Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?"

The rising civilian death toll in Syria is accompanied by mounting calls to arm the Syrian opposition. And Turkey, a NATO country that shares a long, rugged border with Syria, is often mentioned as a likely transit point.

Turkey has become increasingly critical of the Syrian regime, but Ankara is thus far reluctant to send significant arms across the border or use its large military to create a humanitarian corridor inside Syria.

Few 20th century thinkers predicted the 21st century era of social media and the Internet better than Marshall McLuhan. Beginning in the 1960s, the Toronto-based philosopher and scholar began to theorize about how television and radio were changing society, creating what he termed the "global village."

Doctors often let patients decide how much sedation they'd like when they have a colonoscopy.

But whether you're put under by an anesthesiologist may depend a lot more on where you live and who gets paid than patient preference, according to a new study.

Big bucks are involved. It would cost an extra $8 billion a year if anesthesia services were used for all 20 million endoscopies and colonoscopies performed each year, because an anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist has to be paid, too.

There has been a lot of talk about what's wrong with food deserts. First lady Michelle Obama, for one, says far too many people can't access the fruits and vegetables they need to be healthy.

The federal health law's expansion of Medicaid will cover some 16 million more Americans in the government program for the poor, if that part of the law survives the legal challenge it faces in the Supreme Court beginning next week.

Florida is leading 25 other states in that challenge, but that hasn't stopped two of Miami's most prominent hospitals from preparing for the Medicaid expansion.

As Illinois Republicans vote in their presidential primary, only one GOP candidate is expected to be in the state. Mitt Romney planned what he hopes to be a victory party Tuesday night in the Chicago suburb of Schaumburg.

Newt Gingrich is campaigning in Louisiana, which votes on Saturday.

Ron Paul is in California, which doesn't vote until June.

And Rick Santorum is in Pennsylvania, his home state, which votes on April 24.

We hear a lot about juvenile offenders when they commit a crime — and again, when they're sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison. But not much is known about what happens after the prison gates slam shut.

New analysis of a photo taken in 1937 has led investigators to think it might show a piece of the landing gear from aviator Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra plane, which disappeared in June that year somewhere in the South Pacific.

Vermont folk singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell's confessional ballads and strong, emotive singing have earned her comparisons to Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Gillian Welch.

The USGS says an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.4 hit southwest Mexico today.

The United States Geological Survey says it was 6.2 miles deep and about 120 miles east of Acapulco.

We'll have more on this story as it develops.

Update at 3:54 p.m. ET. Back To Normal:

NPR's Jason Beaubien, reporting from the Zocalo area of Mexico City, says officials report no deaths and no major damage.

Our collective mental image of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has been informed, mostly, by the vibrant self-portraits she painted over the years. But she also had a collection of photographs — about 6,500 of them — that were held privately for decades after her death at the request of her husband, Diego Rivera.

To "strengthen our ability to continue providing the world's most insightful and investigative reporting in journalism," The New York Times says that starting in April it will limit non-paying NYTimes.com visitors to 10 free articles per month, down from the current 20.

The Times adds that:

Update at 3:35 p.m. ET: It's official. Peyton Manning is indeed joining the Denver Broncos. He's talking with reporters in Denver right now.

Our Original Post:

"And they have a deal," The Denver Post reports. "An NFL source confirmed Tuesday morning the Broncos and quarterback Peyton Manning have agreed to a five-year, $96 million deal."

George Zimmerman's statement to police about what 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was up to on Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., "is completely contradicted" by the boy's cellphone records, an attorney for Martin's family just said during a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Coming up, later in our mom's conversation we will pick up on an important conversation we know many people are having around bullying. Last week, we heard from a 15-year-old who'd been bullied at school for years. Today, we'll hear how his mom felt about hearing about this in a documentary. That's coming up later in the program.