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In a new book, neuroscientists Sam Wang and Sandra Aamodt detail how parents can help their children learn the ABCs and self-control. The book, Welcome to Your Child's Brain, explores how the human brain develops from infancy to adolescence.

The nation's poverty rate rose last year to 15.1 percent, the highest level in 17 years, according to new data from the Census Bureau. The agency's latest poverty report, released Tuesday, shows that the median income dropped last year by more than 2 percent to about $49,445.

Film critic Roger Ebert is famous for arguing about movies on TV with Gene Siskel. Now that cancer surgeries have left him without the ability to speak, Ebert has found a new voice online. Melissa Block visits him at his Chicago home to talk about his memoir, Life Itself.

Britain is set to change its financial laws. Officials say it's an attempt to prevent taxpayers from ever again having to spend tens of billions of dollars to save banks from collapse. Among other things, banks would be required to set aside more money as a cushion against possible losses.

Maxim Health Care Services has agreed to pay $150 million to resolve fraud allegations by the Justice Department and the attorneys general of 42 states. The home health care company admitted to overcharging Medicaid for six years. Eight former employees at the company have pleaded guilty in connection with the scheme, and some of them face prison time.

At least half a million people are expected to get health care benefits in an expansion of California's Medicaid program, including many former prison inmates. Many ex-offenders will now be covered for care, including mental health and substance abuse — problems that, when left untreated, can lead them right back behind bars.

Over the past few weeks, Talk of the Nation has been asking for the books you think should be required reading for all college freshmen. Here are 10 of your suggestions.

B. Todd Jones, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, has been tapped as acting director of the agency, which is under pressure from Congress after a botched gun-trafficking operation known as "Fast and Furious." A colleague says of Jones, "When the going gets tough, he can be one of the toughest guys in the room."

Firefighter Ken Haskell was off duty on Sept. 11, 2001, when his two brothers, also firefighters, died in the World Trade Center. Haskell's story of searching the rubble for his brothers' bodies is included in A Decade of Hope: Stories of Grief and Endurance from 9/11 Families and Friends.

As a child, poet Philip Schultz struggled in school, but it wasn't until his son was diagnosed with dyslexia that Schultz finally had a name for what had frustrated him all those years. In My Dyslexia, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet revisits his childhood struggles and how he coped.