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A committee of Hong Kong's handpicked elite will select the territory's new leader this weekend after a hotly contested fight, which has left both the main front-runners tainted by scandal.

It's been 15 years since Hong Kong, a former British colony, reverted to Chinese sovereignty, yet tensions between local people and those from the mainland run deeper than ever.

A New York pop-rock trio with a spunky and theatrical side, fun. began when singer Nate Ruess was coming off the breakup of his long-running band The Format.

People across the country have had something to say about the death of Trayvon Martin, but the man at the center of the case — George Zimmerman — remains silent.

The neighborhood watch volunteer told police he was acting in self-defense when he shot Trayvon last month. Zimmerman has yet to be charged with a crime — or to speak publicly about what happened, leaving others to speak for him.

There's been a lot of scrutiny of the call Zimmerman made to 911 moments before his collision with Trayvon. But that was hardly Zimmerman's first call to the police in Sanford, Fla.

The oldest living former major league baseball player doesn't live in the United States, but in Cuba.

His name is Conrado Marrero, but he was Connie Marrero when he pitched for the Washington Senators in the early 1950s. Today Marrero is blind and unable to walk, and next month he'll be 101 years old.

The man who once struck out Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle lives in a small, modest apartment in Havana with the family of his grandson, who is also his caretaker.

If you know the actress and comedian Niecy Nash, you're probably either excited about her new reality show, Leave It To Niecy, or you're cringing just thinking about it. Nash does not do things halfway. Her new show starts Sunday, and it's intended to be something like a real-life Modern Family.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales has been officially been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder for the March 11 killings of unarmed men, women and children in Southern Afghanistan, The Associated Press just reported from Kabul.

It adds that "premeditated murder is a capital offense and if convicted, Bales could be sentenced to death."

Whooping cough has made a comeback lately, with big outbreaks in California and elsewhere.

One factor is spotty vaccination.

Now researchers in Australia think they've filled in another piece of the puzzle there.

They say the vaccine is better at targeting some strains of the bacterium responsible for whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis, and that's allowing other strains to flourish.

You've probably heard of compost – that thick chocolate-colored stuff that's an organic gardener's best friend and supplies plants with all kinds of succulent nutrients.

During a campaign stop at a Louisiana firing range, Rick Santorum took the opportunity to shoot some rounds at a target.

But as he took one shot, a supporter yelled, "Pretend it's Obama."

The GOP presidential candidate said he did not hear the remarks, but media travelling with the former Pennsylvania senator caught it on tape.

Here's ABC News video of it:

Santorum very quickly disavowed the remarks.

These days, hotels aren't just looking to hire bellhops, concierges and housekeepers. What the industry really needs are digital bloodhounds: people who understand how to use new technologies to track — and attract — potential guests.

One of those newfangled workers is Greg Bodenlos. At 24, he's just a couple of years out of Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. His official title is digital marketing strategist at The Mark Hotel, a luxury hotel in New York City.

Earlier, today, President Obama nominated Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank.

The scene in Mali's capital, Bamako, shows what used to be a familiar sight: an African capital in chaos, with drunken soldiers firing into the air and looting government buildings in the wake of a coup.

Military coups were dishearteningly common for people in Africa and Latin America during the 1960s and '70s, as governments fell to opportunistic military men.

But that trend had been slowing in the past two decades, as more and more governments began to hold regular elections.

The complexity, scale and sliding timetable for implementation of the federal health overhaul make it tough to figure out exactly what's happened so far. To help you sort through some key provisions, here's a scorecard.

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In effort to add pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad, the European Union has announced new sanctions on a dozen Syrians, including Assad's wife, his mother, sister and sister-in-law.

"I cannot say to you in strong enough terms how much we are concerned about what's going on in Syria," said Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, according to CNN. "I'm really worried about the escalating spiral of violence there.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The White House has made its choice for who should lead the World Bank. Jim Yong Kim is currently the president of Dartmouth University. He's a physician and a global health expert and something of a surprise to people who've been watching this process.

Here is President Obama at the White House this morning.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear challenges to the health care law. Continuing Tell Me More's preview of the case, host Michel Martin sits down with Neal Katyal. He is former Acting Solicitor General and defended the Affordable Care Act in lower courts.

On Morning Edition this week we looked at "What's Making Americans Less Thirsty for Gasoline?"

Now let's examine another important question: "If our demand for gasoline is falling, why are prices in the U.S. rising?"

This interview was originally broadcast on December 15, 2011. Being Elmo premieres on the PBS program Independent Lens on April 5th.

Mitt Romney has an impressive victory in Illinois, gets Jeb Bush's backing, revives the inevitability argument and then gets bogged down in an Etch A Sketch distraction. Plus: Illinois primary results, and Barbara Mikulski breaks a record. NPR's Ken Rudin and Ron Elving have this week's political roundup.

Martin Killgallon, marketing director for Ohio Arts, we salute you:

"We have a left knob and a right knob," he said of his company's Etch A Sketch, The Associated Press reports, "so we neutrally speak to both parties."