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With a vote of 52 to 47, today, Republicans in the Senate succesfully blocked a Democratic-backed bill that called for equal pay for women.

But, as the AP reports, passing the bill was not the only intent of Democrats. The bill was obviously intended to draw attention to schism that have developed between the two parties on women's issues.

The AP reports:

Four years ago, Evelyn Stevens was working as a Wall Street investment banker and just starting to race bicycles. But she rose through the cycling ranks quickly, and next month she will represent the United States at the Olympic Games in London.

On a recent muggy morning in busy Central Park, Stevens easily weaves her bicycle through many obstacles.

"There's the horse carriages, there's the bike buggies, there's the Rollerbladers," she says, "the people on their bikes training, the five gajillion joggers, the hot dog stands, the dogs — there's a lot going in."

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker vastly out-raised and outspent his Democratic challenger in the state's recall election, largely on the strength of major donations from across the country.

One reason for that was a quirk in Wisconsin law, which lets a governor in Walker's situation bypass limits on political donations.

Wisconsin law says candidates for governor normally may not take donations of more than $10,000 each. That was the limit under which Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, the Democrat, operated in the recall election being decided Tuesday at the polls.

Depression can be treated effectively over the phone, and a test of the approach showed that patients are more likely to maintain treatment telephonically.

Researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine offered 18 weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy, a kind of talk therapy, to more than 300 patients with major depression. Half received treatment in person and half over the phone.

The U.S. is withdrawing millions of dollars in funding for the Pakistani version of Sesame Street. Officials say the decision stems from serious allegations of fraud directed at the Pakistani theater company that's producing the children's TV program.

Sim Sim Hamara, the Pakistani version of Sesame Street, is set in a mock-up of a typical Pakistani town. There's a school, the ubiquitous Banyan tree, a restaurant and a colorful cast of characters centered on a 6-year-old girl named Rani who loves the sport of cricket.

A new Obama campaign ad says the Massachusetts economy actually fared poorly during Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's four years as governor, challenging the notion that Romney knows how to fix the nation's ailing economy.

The ad says that between 2003 and 2007, Massachusetts had one of the worst economic records in the country, lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs at "a rate twice the national average, and fell to 47th in job creation."

All Things Considered continues its "Mom and Dad's Record Collection" series with former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The politician currently hosts a TV show on Fox News and plays bass guitar in his rock band, Capitol Offense. His musical tastes are similarly multifaceted: Huckabee says he grew up listening to big-band jazz.

"When I entered the box the ladies were very much excited. Mr. Lincoln was seated in a high backed arm-chair with his head leaning towards his right side supported by Mrs. Lincoln who was weeping bitterly. Miss Harris was near her left and behind the President.

"While approaching the President I sent a gentleman for brandy and another for water."

Those are the words of Dr. Charles A. Leale, 23, the first physician to reach Abraham Lincoln's side on April 14, 1865, after assassin John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head.

Over the next couple of weeks, NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is taking a Revolutionary Road trip across North Africa to see how the countries of the Arab Spring are remaking themselves after revolutions last year.

Steve and his team are traveling some 2,000 miles from Tunisia's ancient city of Carthage, across the deserts of Libya and on to Egypt's megacity of Cairo.

When Wisconsin State Sen. Dale Schultz goes to the polls Tuesday, he will vote for GOP Gov. Scott Walker in the gubernatorial recall election.

"I'm a Republican," Schultz said during an interview in his Capitol office in Madison, on the eve of the state's historically acrimonious and expensive recall election.

But if the Democratic candidate, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, succeeds in ousting Walker, Schultz, 58, says, "I'm going to do everything I can to make him successful, too."

Join us today at 3:30 p.m. EDT for a chat on Twitter with pediatrician Robert Block, the current president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Search for the hashtag #nprkids. We'll be tweeting from @NPRHealth with @DrBobBlock for about a half-hour.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco says it will not reconsider an earlier ruling that California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

That means, as our colleagues at KQED's News Fix blog report, that "Prop 8 supporters will almost certainly ask the United States Supreme Court to hear the case."

With an endorsement from first lady Michelle Obama for its effort, Walt Disney Co. confirmed this morning that it is going to apply new standards to food ads aimed at children and their families during programming for kids. The entertainment giant says it will try "to inspire kids to lead healthier lifestyles."

In an age when the size of the observable universe is known to a few decimal places, today's Transit of Venus offers a good opportunity to reflect on just how far we've come.

(For viewing information, click here.)

Less than 250 years ago, the brightest minds of the Enlightenment were stumped over how far the Earth is from the sun. The transits of the 1760s helped answer that question, providing a virtual yardstick for the universe.

All U.S. presidential elections "are unique in some fashion," says John G. Geer, a political science professor at Vanderbilt University.

Sure, but what about 2012? What exactly will make the 2012 election between President Obama and Mitt Romney truly unique?

Drummer Mike Reed put together his quartet People, Places and Things to play music by their 1950s forebears. But it makes sense that, after a few years together, they'd also play later pieces, tracking the evolution of Chicago jazz on a new album titled Clean on the Corner. One dividend of their repertory work is that it inspires Reed to write his own tunes in the same spirit, like "The Lady Has a Bomb."

It's more bad news for Facebook today. A poll by Reuters/Ipsos found that most of its users are not swayed by its advertisements.

Four out of five users surveyed said they had never bought a product based on advertising they saw on the network. What's more, the online poll revealed that "34 percent of Facebook users surveyed were spending less time on the website than six months ago, whereas only 20 percent were spending more."

Reuters reports:

A new expose by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans calls Louisiana the "world's prison capital."

The state imprisons more people per capita than any other state or country in the world, with one out of every 86 adults behind bars. Its rate of incarceration is three times higher than Iran's and 10 times higher than Germany's.

How did Louisiana double its prison population in the past 20 years? And what differentiates it from other states?