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U.S. pole vaulter Jenn Suhr reached a long-awaited breakthrough Monday, when she won the gold medal in her event at the London Olympics. She defeated a field that included two-time gold medalist Elena Isinbaeva of Russia. As NPR reported back in April, Suhr trains in a unique setting: an airplane hangar next to her house.

Adam Steltzner, the leader of the Mars rover's entry, descent and landing engineering team, says he was terrified of "a false positive celebration" in the control room. Fortunately for him, Curiosity landed perfectly. Now he's eyeing Jupiter's moon.

From the London Games' opening ceremony through 302 medal events, these Summer Olympics have fed fans a rich diet of history and spectacle. I can only wish that I'd been able to eat it all — but part of the allure of the Olympics is that there's no way to watch everything.

A court sentenced the three members of the female punk band Pussy Riot to two years in jail after they were found guilty of hooliganism and religious hatred. The group had staged an anti-Putin protest in Moscow's main cathedral last February.

A progressive group says it’s concerned about the influence held in Ohio by a national organization of state lawmakers, lobbyists and corporate officials.…

Josefina Vazquez Mota is the first woman from a major political party to run for president. She has pledged to crack down on corruption but is having trouble distancing herself from President Felipe Calderon. He's from the same party, and his drug war has failed to halt cartel violence.

Gorillas often get a bad rap, but folks who work with them say they're as much gentle as giant. On a recent trip to scope out the primates, an NPR producer trekked into the Virunga mountains of East Africa, where more than half of the world's mountain gorillas live.

Stock car racing is one of America's favorite spectator sports. For the drivers at Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh, N.Y., racing's an all-consuming passion that defines them and their families. Drivers from the Adirondacks, Vermont and southern Quebec head to the track on Saturdays to race cars they've built themselves.

When they travel to London to compete in this summer's Olympics, many elite athletes will be joined by family members. But for Alexander Massialas and his father, Greg, it's different. Both of them will represent the United States — one as a coach, and the other as an athlete.

The eerie stencil paintings of human hands in Spanish caves might not be from humans at all. New dating methods of the paintings suggest some of the cave art could have been drawn by Neanderthals.