Students at more than 100 colleges across the country rallied Thursday to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Demonstrators, both on and off campus, are voicing increasing frustration with the high cost of college, mounting student debt loads and the lousy job market for recent graduates.

Steve Inskeep has a preview of Scott Simon's upcoming interview with Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.

Alabama business owners are furious about the state's new immigration law. They say it is costing them business. Some wonder if the state will ultimately change the law, which is leading legal and illegal immigrants to flee the state.

Steve Inskeep has the Last Word in business.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took on U.S. trade policy during a speech yesterday at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. From member station KUOW in Seattle, Amy Radil reports.

Steve Inskeep has business news.

Five Air Force Pave Hawk helicopters are parked or landing in the high desert east of Tucson, Ariz. They are transporting victims of a mock earthquake as part of a training exercise called Operation Angel Thunder.

"We were always known for staying really quiet and not really saying much," says Brett Hartnett, who started Operation Angel Thunder five years ago.

Every Syrian is feeling the economic pain of a seven month uprising and western sanctions to end a bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters.

But shopkeepers tell a different story along a street of open-air shops in the Midan neighborhood in central Damascus. A government escort accompanies an NPR reporter for interviews about the sensitive subject of tightening economic sanctions against Syria.

Hassan Shagharouri runs a sweets shop. When asked if prices are rising, he responds that the prices are the same and that everything is perfect.

Apparently one of the earliest human instincts was to paint things, including bodies and cave walls. That's the conclusion from scientists who have discovered something remarkable in a South African cave — a tool kit for making paint. It looks to be the oldest evidence of paint-making.

Over in southern Africa 100,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was pretty new on the scene. A favorite hangout was a cave named Blombos near the Southern ocean.

Small businesses are often called the backbone of the U.S. economy; they employ about half of the nation's private sector employees. But in many cases, small companies start out with a workforce of just one — like cereal entrepreneur Ian Szalinski in Rochester, N.Y., who's trying to stake a claim to the breakfast market.