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Ever since The Rising in 2002 — and arguably since 1984's Born in the U.S.A. — Bruce Springsteen releases have functioned as State of the Union addresses as much as pop LPs. Wrecking Ball does, too, beginning with its Occupy-era lead single "We Take Care of Our Own," an anthemic bit of wishful thinking which, like "Born in the U.S.A.," seems easy to misinterpret by 180 degrees if you don't pay attention to the verses between the chorus.

Sushi seems like the perfect modern food: Light, healthful and available at seemingly every supermarket in the nation. But is it sustainable?

That's the question behind "The Story of Sushi," a new video that's been pulling a lot of clicks in the past week. Maybe that's because its adorable format, with tiny, handcrafted figures used to tell the tale, stands in stark contrast to its depressing message: Most of the sushi we snarf up is harvested using unsustainable methods.

Robert Staake, the cover artist for the New Yorker's March 12 cover took a story that's an oldie but goodie — Mitt Romney strapping the kennel containing Seamus the family dog atop the family car during a vacation road trip — and gave it a new spin with Rick Santorum filling in for the dog.

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke in Chicago on Monday on the legal rationales for targeting and killing Americans suspected of terrorism overseas. Carrie Johnson talks to Melissa Block.

It was more than 30 years before Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak lost his grip on power, though many of his people had long suffered under his oppressive regime.

It took less than a week for "a newly minted ultra-conservative Islamist member" of the post-Mubarak parliament in Egypt to be forced to resign because he lied about getting a nose job.

The European Union's justice commissioner says companies have not done enough voluntarily to narrow the gender gap at the top of publicly traded European firms.

Viviane Reding said self regulation has not worked, so it may be time to consider quotas.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., will later today become the first senator to call for U.S.-led air strikes on the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Foreign Policy magazine's The Cable blog reports:

There's little dispute among educators that kids are not reading as well as they should be, but there's endless debate over what to do about it. Now, a growing number of states are taking a hard-line approach through mandatory retentions — meaning third-graders who can't read at grade level will automatically get held back.

To those pushing the idea, it's equal doses of tough and love: You are not doing kids any favors, they say, by waiving them on to fourth grade if they aren't up to snuff on their reading.

Suffolk University has a new poll out of Ohio that reminds us that in politics as in life, timing is everything; Rick Santorum would have been much better off if Super Tuesday had been two weeks ago.

Toola may not be a household name, but she made quite an impression on the staff of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where she lived most of her adult life.

Just look at how Dr. Mike Murray, an aquarium veterinarian, described the sea otter:

"I will argue that there is no other single sea otter that had a greater impact upon the sea otter species, the sea otter programs worldwide, and upon the interface between the sea otters' scientific community and the public."

Gregg Williams, who has spent time as an assistant or head coach at six NFL teams, is meeting with league investigators today to talk about what he's admitted was "a bounty pool of up to $50,000 over the last three seasons that rewarded players with thousand-dollar payoffs for knocking targeted opponents out of games while he was the New Orleans Saints' defensive coordinator," The Associated Press reports.

Both in their early 20s, First Aid Kit's Johanna and Klara Söderberg are already winning over listeners worldwide with their intricate, woodsy harmonizing. The Swedish duo's second album, The Lion's Roar, has already charted in Australia, Denmark, the U.K., Norway and Sweden.

You'd think that scary numbers from the big dogs in infectious disease would be enough to make raw milk drinkers reconsider that choice.

But don't count on it. Just 7 percent of raw milk consumers say they trust health officials' recommendations on what foods are safe to eat, according to a new study.

That means that 93 percent of those folks aren't convinced when health officials say that raw milk products can cause diseases like bovine tuberculosis, Q-fever, and brucellosis, as well as more common food-borne illnesses like Listeria and Salmonella.

Dierks Bentley has a nice, deep voice; an open, friendly demeanor; and a knack for working in a variety of country-music genres, from bluegrass to power ballads. For all that, it's always been difficult to pin down what Bentley aims to do. Although he's only in his 30s, Bentley sounds as though he's working through a bit of a midlife crisis on his new album Home. Take, for example, the single "Am I the Only One," a novelty tune about going out to party with a twist — not many of Bentley's pals want to join him, because they've settled into adulthood, and he hasn't.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said that the tumor removed by Cuban doctors last week was found to be cancerous.

In remarks televised on Sunday, Chávez also denied rumors that that the cancer had spread to other parts of his body. Bloomberg reports:

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News.

Coming up, some advocates for more expansive reproductive rights say women are being disrespected and demeaned by state and national debates about access to abortion and contraception, particularly those debates that include few, if any women. We are going to hear from a female state lawmaker who has flipped the script and crafted legislation focused on the reproductive choices of men. We'll have that conversation in a few minutes.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Coming up, you've heard the phrase: A mind is terrible thing to waste. That's the longtime slogan of a group that worked to get more African-Americans into college. Well, now a group is saying: Ice time is a terrible thing to waste. There's a new scholarship to try to get more college students of color into hockey. We'll hear more about that in just a few minutes.

Think about something it took you a really long time to learn, like how to parallel park. At first, parallel parking was difficult and you had to devote a lot of mental energy to it. But after you grew comfortable with parallel parking, it became much easier — almost habitual, you could say.

With Iran and its nuclear program looming over the discussions, President Obama just said at the White House that "the United States will always have Israel's back." The president's comment came with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is at the White House for talks today, by his side.

For his part, Netanyahu told reporters that the U.S. and Israel stand together on policy toward Iran, The Associated Press reports.

The two leaders just held something of a photo op. Other reports on what they had to say:

Newspapers are dying, right?

You probably think so because, for one thing, you're not reading this in a newspaper.

It'd be a reasonable thought. Newspaper readers gradually have been stopping their subscriptions for many years. And the Internet (NPR.org, too) has steadily stolen readers and advertising revenue for the past decade.