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In the Cleveland area, there's a plan to inspire kids to start thinking about college early on by giving them seed money. Officials want to set up kindergarteners with savings accounts. Though the initial $100 deposit isn't likely to cover much, the hope is that it will inspire them to take the idea of going to college seriously.

Senator Jim DeMint on Thursday announced that he will not return to the new Congress, and instead will resign early next month. DeMint will instead lead the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Melissa Block talks with Joshua Landis, Director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, about the ongoing conflict in Syria and whether the Bashar al-Assad regime has reached a tipping point.

A panel of psychiatrists recently voted on changes for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It guides diagnoses and treatments for millions of people. Among the changes is the removal of the so-called "bereavement exclusion" for depression diagnoses. Audie Cornish talks with Jerome Wakefield of NYU's Silver School of Social Work and Department of Psychiatry, about how it might change the way doctors deal with grieving patients.

Exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is expected to visit the territory, crossing over from the Egyptian border. His visit comes amid speculation that Hamas, which rules Gaza, will seal a reconciliation deal with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

In his new book, the guitarist, singer and songwriter shares stories from life growing up in a musical household and talks about collaborating and sharing the stage with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra and Paul McCartney.

From post-apocalyptic character studies to speculative paleontology, reviewer Annalee Newitz says this year's best science fiction stretches boundaries and crosses genres. She also sees a strong resurgence in political themes, with a focus on civilizations on the brink of transformation or collapse.

NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates profiles novelist Susan Straight, who is putting her hometown of Riverside, Calif., on the literary map. Straight herself is white, but she weaves the black, working-class voices of Riverside into her work.

Author Sebastian Faulks says all of the characters in his new novel, A Possible Life, "struggle with the idea of selfhood, and who they are and identity." The novel weaves together five separate stories, jumping centuries and locations, and Faulks compares them to movements in a symphony.

After the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinians as a non-member state, Israel announced it would expand settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. If completed, the project would effectively divide the West Bank in two, according to the Palestinians.