Stop Rick Perry.

That was the goal of the other Republican presidential candidates who came to the CNN/Tea Party Express debate Monday evening, to make GOP voters see the Texas governor and front-runner for their party's presidential nomination as less of a shiny new object and more as damaged goods.

By the end of the two-hour debate in Tampa, Fla., his rivals may not have knocked him out of the lead but they gave any Republican voters with doubts about Perry plenty more to fuel their concerns.

It's not often that a writer can illustrate his own books, but Brian Selznick is that rare find. He began his career as an artist collaborating with authors on children's books. But he gradually realized that he wanted to tell his own stories in both words and pictures — and to do that, Selznick invented a unique narrative device.

Tina Brown, editor of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, tells us what she's been reading in a feature that Morning Edition likes to call Word of Mouth.

Miyo Tatebayashi used to live about three miles from the Fukushima nuclear plant, which suffered a crippling accident when the March 11 tsunami struck Japan.

On a recent day, she had just returned from a government-organized trip to the radiation zone in Fukushima prefecture along Japan's northeast coast. She had wanted to see her house.

"When I got out of the bus with my daughter, we were smiling. 'It's there,' " she recalls saying. "But when we actually saw our place, I thought, 'Oh, there is no way.' "

California has embarked on an ambitious expansion of its Medicaid program, three years ahead of the federal expansion that the health law requires in 2014. At least half a million people are expected to gain coverage — mostly poor adults who never qualified under the old rules because they didn't have kids at home.

Among those who stand to benefit right now are ex-offenders. Inmates often leave California prisons with no consistent place to get medical care. But that's changing.

Anamanaguchi is a punk band that's part of an underground music scene known as "chiptune," an emerging form of electronic music that creates a layered sound from limited technology: video-game systems from the '80s. The group's music got its name because it combines the sound chips of old Nintendos and Game Boys with the guitars and drums of rock; it uses software designed for writing songs, then installs those songs on chips into old game machines. On stage, its members play traditional instruments like guitars and drums along with the video-game console, chirping a digital melody.

Over the past few days, we've gotten snippets of a seven-part interview with Jacqueline Kennedy conducted in 1964 by the historian and Kennedy aide Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

What's emerged is that these tapes aren't your usual gloss on history, instead it's a very candid Jackie Kennedy, who was speaking honestly and disarmed a short time after the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy.

The nation's largest bank said Monday that it will cut 30,000 jobs over the next few years. Bank of America has been plagued by losses after buying the home lender Countrywide, and many investors have lost faith in the bank, driving its stock down 50 percent this year.

Meanwhile, Bank of America has been selling off parts of its business to raise more capital.

About Randy

Audio Diary

The six people in our series The Road Back To Work are chronicling the ups and downs of their job searches by keeping audio diaries this year. Updates will be posted here regularly.

Randy's Story

Randy Howland, 51, is on the job market again. After six months in a $10-an-hour customer service job, he was let go. It was an at-home call center type job, where speed was at a premium and Howland admits he spent too much time on each call. He says he was "too customer oriented."