Two recent college grads, who met in economics class, have collaborated to form the band The Bull & The Bear. Their album, Recession Sessions, includes tunes for downtrodden times such as "Main Street Venting Blues" and "Our Love Is An Illiquid Asset."

Two Seattle-based companies plan to open the first American-operated senior facility in China. Chinese families used to rely on children and grandchildren to care for aging parents, but people are working long hours, and options for senior care are limited.

Shareholder Services, a major investor advisory firm, is urging shareholders to oust Rupert Murdoch and his sons from the board at News Corp. The firm recommended against re-electing 13 of the 15 News Corp. board members when shareholders hold their annual meeting in two weeks.

Think Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy, Freddie Prinze on Chico And The Man, Sofia Vergara on Modern Family. While Spanish has long had a recurring bit role on English-language television, it has slowly but surely become an integral part of the American soundtrack. Here's a look at a few highlights from the past six decades.

Any industry looking for major growth in the U.S. market can't ignore Latinos, who make up 16 percent of the U.S. population. As the Latino population grows, beer marketers are trying more nuanced ways of influencing this key segment.

"They love beer," says Jim Sabia, chief marketing officer for Crown Imports, which distributes Mexican beers including Corona and Modelo. "Hispanics are 19 percent more likely to purchase beer than the rest of U.S. consumers." On top of that, Hispanics will make up a large portion of the legal drinking age population in the future.

The Labor Department announced last week that the U.S. economy grew by just 103,000 jobs in September. A number like that isn't even enough to keep up with population growth. The fact that the report was widely greeted as positive news suggests just how low expectations have sunk this year.

Since January, the U.S. economy has been hit by a series of external shocks that brought a modest recovery nearly to a halt. But, the slowdown may have been under way even before the shocks took place.

Twenty years ago Tuesday, the nation was spellbound by a political and sexual drama that played out before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Following an NPR report, the committee was forced to hold a second round of confirmation hearings to examine allegations it had previously ignored about Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

Food Network star Paula Deen loves seasoning, bacon and, of course, a bit of butter.

She also loves Southern cooking, which why her latest cookbook, Paula Deen's Southern Cooking Bible, explores the regional variations of Southern food.

Deen tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that she first discovered some of those variations in her home state of Georgia.

Liberians go to the polls Tuesday to elect a new president and lawmakers in the second key elections since the end of the civil war in 2003. The incumbent leader, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Africa's first democratically elected female president — was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, but her opponents say she deserves neither the award nor re-election.

Carter Hooper had a problem. The 51-year-old from New Orleans had spent years lugging around his collection of 900 CDs.

"Those things survived Katrina, actually. I was in Katrina; I was in Biloxi, Miss., in a building that almost got blown away, but I had stacked those precious things up in the closet," Hooper says.

Then, Hooper discovered Murfie, a business in Madison, Wis., where he could ship all of his CDs for free, and still retain ownership of them.