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For only the second time ever, the Securities and Exchange Commission is charging a state with fraud, for allegedly misleading investors about the health of its pension funds. The SEC says the state of Illinois did not properly inform investors that its pension funds were significantly underfunded when selling bonds from 2005 to 2009. This is the latest fiscal black eye for a state with a pension shortfall approaching a whopping $100 billion. The state has agreed to settle the charges.

As the conclave to select a new pope gets under way at the Vatican, what do American Catholics want from the next pontiff? Renee Montagne speaks with Greg Smith of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life about their most recent survey.

A New York state judge has sided with the beverage industry and struck down the Bloomberg administration's controversial ban on big sugary drinks. The judge ruled that the rule, put in place by New York City's health department and set to take effect Tuesday, is "arbitrary and capricious."

House budget chief and former vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan unveils the House GOP budget plan Tuesday morning. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats will do the same. For more on the GOP plan, Renee Montagne speaks with NPR's Tamara Keith.

Steve Inskeep speaks with Akbar Ahmed about his book The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam. In the late 1970s, Ahmed was in charge of the tribal area of Pakistan known as South Waziristan — a region he says is the most dangerous place in the world.

For their popular podcast, two longtime friends sit down at a kitchen table and share little-known anecdotes and historical facts about New York. Its bare-bones production hasn't hurt its popularity — it's been downloaded 5 million times in the past five years.

A Seattle widow's one-stop estate planning advice blog was inspired by her own paperwork frustrations after her husband's death. Chanel Reynolds offers a checklist of documents to prepare, a will template and a list of details to write down, like passwords to online accounts.

Author Dana Becker says that Americans are obsessed with curing stress, rather than identifying and addressing the forces that cause it. Becker explains the origins of the concept of stress, how "stress inflation" is affecting society, and why just eating more kale isn't enough.

"The blunt truth is men still run the world," says Silicon Valley executive Sheryl Sandberg — and the problem begins as early as the playground, where assertive boys are called leaders, and assertive girls are called bossy.

Washington Post food editor Joe Yonan took a bit of a professional risk this week by publicly declaring his vegetarianism. He's not alone: Many Americans say they've cut back on meat in recent years, and like Yonan, they cite health as a primary concern.