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The Irish are seething after discovering the enormous cost of bailing out their reckless banks. The cost of the bank bailout, totaling nearly $70 billion, is just a further burden for the people of Ireland, where 1 in 6 is jobless, and those still working are being hit with extra taxes amid a shrinking economy.

At age 9, Demetrius Walker was dunking basketballs into a 10-foot hoop. As an eighth grader, he made the cover of Sports Illustrated. Sportswriter George Dohrmann examines the cutthroat, big-money world of youth basketball in his new book, Play Their Hearts Out.

The National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday that the recession, which began in December 2007, ended more than a year ago. But leading economists -- and the president -- said it doesn't mean the economy is now back on track.

The recession that started in December 2007 ended in June 2009, according to a group that dates the beginning and end of recessions. The downturn lasted 18 months, making it the longest since World War II, the National Bureau of Economic Research said.

If the tax cut for wealthiest Americans is allowed to expire, those households making over $250,000 would see their income tax rate rise from 33 percent to 36 percent and those making upwards of $375,000 would go from a 35 percent rate to 39.6 percent. But does it make sense for the tax rate for someone making six figures to be the same as for multimillionaires?

More than 6 million African-Americans moved from the South to cities in the Northeast and Midwest between 1915 and 1970. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson documents the resulting demographic and social changes in her history of the Great Migration, The Warmth of Other Suns.

In autumn, the publishing industry kicks into high gear, rolling out "big books" — the titles that publishers hope readers will buy through the all-important holiday season. NPR's Lynn Neary follows the path of Emma Donoghue's novel, Room, a book that has generated some serious buzz.

When it comes to taxes in the U.S., it's the income tax -- and the annual April 15 deadline for filing returns -- that gets most of our attention. But that's only part of the picture -- there are property taxes and sales taxes, even taxes built into every cell phone bill. So how much do we pay? One couple in Connecticut opens their books to find out.

The U.S. unemployment rate surged far higher and has remained higher than in other major industrial countries. It's now at 9.6 percent. The big shift came when American companies cut workers more aggressively than foreign firms in the face of the financial crisis.

Most Israelis view Gaza as hostile territory ruled by a terrorist group, Hamas, committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. Though cross-border violence has subsided recently, Israelis still feel under attack and remain in a state of hyper-vigilance.