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Former Vice President Dick Cheney is recovering Sunday from a heart transplant he received at a Virginia hospital.

As NPR's Don Gonyea reported: "Cheney had been on a waiting list for a new heart for more than 20 months, ever since surgery in 2010 to install a pump and external battery to deal with was described as 'end stage heart failure.'"

A statement released Saturday by a Cheney aide said that the former vice president and his family do not know the donor's identity. The statement said the family will be "forever grateful for this lifesaving gift."

The newest album from the folk outfit Lost in the Trees is a very personal one. Ari Picker, the creative force behind the band, began writing the songs for A Church That Fits Our Needs after the death of his mother, Karen Shelton. She was an artist herself, one who struggled with mental illness throughout her life. In 2008, she killed herself.

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SUSAN STAMBERG, HOST:

In NCAA men's basketball, the Louisville Cardinals and Ohio State Buckeyes have qualified for the Final Four. Later today, two more teams will join them after Kentucky plays Baylor and Kansas faces North Carolina. With so much basketball peppered with reversals and upsets, it's hard to deny the madness of March. But, as NPR's Mike Pesca reports, most coaches try desperately to keep it at bay.

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SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Susan Stamberg. Rachel Martin is on assignment.

Not one second of the six hours of arguments on the health care law will be either seen or heard in real time by anyone not at the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court has turned down requests to allow live broadcasts of this week's historic proceedings.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney underwent a heart transplant Saturday, after waiting 20 months for a donor.

Pope Benedict XVI gives an open-air Mass in Mexico Sunday and, on his way there, will bless the Christ the King monument, an important symbol of Mexican Catholicism.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has undergone a heart transplant in a hospital near Washington. Cheney, 71, was on the waiting list for a heart for 20 months, which is longer than the average wait time in the Washington area. His prognosis remains uncertain.

President Obama is in South Korea Sunday to take part in a multilateral conference aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation. He arrives in South Korea at a time of considerable tension. North Korea is threatening to carry out a long-range rocket launch in April, an action the U.S. has warned it should not take.

A few days ago, a plane carrying members of the 182nd Infantry Regiment touched down in Indiana. The 303 soldiers who were on board are members of an Army National Guard unit that has just finished a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.

The soldiers, dressed in their combat uniforms and carrying their weapons, bounded down the stairs from the plane. They shook the hands of the generals who had gathered there to welcome them home. It was the middle of the night and raining, but none of them seemed to mind. It had been a long trip and a long year.

The preparations for Pope Benedict XVI's three-day visit to Cuba have produced some unusual sights and sounds there lately.

A church van with a megaphone drove around one Havana neighborhood recently, calling Cubans out of their homes to a gathering in a nearby park, with the message that God loves them.

The number of churchgoing Catholics on the island is growing again, but it remains less than 10 percent, and the call to gather was a rare exception to the Communist government's ban on public acts of religious proselytism.

The Russian boy sent back to his homeland by his adoptive U.S. mother two years ago might have finally gotten a break.

Torry Ann Hansen put Artyom Savelyev on a plane with a note saying he had "severe psychopathic issues" and she didn't want to be his parent any more. A Shelbyville, Tenn., court ordered her to pay child support this month.

Artyom's journey highlights the challenges both within Russia and between Russia and the United States over how to care for orphans.

Creating A Family Life

Rick Santorum had been expected to win Louisiana's Republican presidential primary Saturday, but the size of the victory was a surprise. The former Pennsylvania senator captured 49 percent of the GOP vote. Mitt Romney, who is the front-runner nationally, finished a distant second with nearly 27 percent. Santorum sees his win as evidence that the party still has big doubts about Romney.

Among those who voted for Santorum was 54-year-old Curt Thurmon in Shreveport.

No state has worked harder to stop the federal health care overhaul than Florida. Hours after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law two years ago, Florida led 12 other states in a federal court challenge. Eventually, a total of 26 states signed on.

The Supreme Court will hear the case this week. Meanwhile, Florida's governor, Rick Scott, has rejected more than $35 million in federal grants to help the state prepare for the new federal program.

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments over President Obama's health care overhaul this week, we take a look at the questions at stake each day.

Monday: Can the courts even rule on the constitutionality of the law right now?

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to begin hearing oral arguments Monday in a Republican-led challenge to the national health care law that has convulsed the country and its political class for more than two years — and may well define President Obama's tenure in the White House.

Dick Cheney, 71, was in a Virginia hospital following a heart transplant Saturday. Host Laura Sullivan talks with NPR's Rob Stein about the former vice president's health.

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LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Laura Sullivan, in for Guy Raz.

The Republican nominating contest is back in the South today as primary voters cast their ballots in Louisiana. A little earlier, we caught up with NPR's national political correspondent Don Gonyea who's on the road in Louisiana. Don, where are you now?

In Round 8 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest, listeners were given this challenge: Begin a story with this sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door." And, as always, the story must be 600 words or less. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. ET Sunday.

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LAURA SULLIVAN, HOST:

A new online ad from Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum sketches out a dire threat.

(SOUNDBITE OF POLITICAL AD)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Imagine a small American town two years from now if Obama is re-elected. The wait to see a doctor is ever increasing. Gas prices through the roof, and the freedom of religion under attack.