Three hundred and fifty thousand: That's a conservative estimate for the number of offenders with mental illness confined in America's prisons and jails.

More Americans receive mental health treatment in prisons and jails than in hospitals or treatment centers. In fact, the three largest inpatient psychiatric facilities in the country are jails: Los Angeles County Jail, Rikers Island Jail in New York City and Cook County Jail in Illinois.

Fires are on the decline nationwide, but that doesn't make a firefighters job any easier. In fact, it may be harder now. Not only are fires more complicated these days, but the scope of firefighting has changed drastically and now includes fire prevention, public education, safety inspections and more than anything, emergency medical assistance.

"Seventy percent of our calls are medical calls," probational firefighter Jeff Taylor tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin offered her supporters no hint of her political plans during a speech Saturday at a Tea Party rally in Iowa.

The atmosphere was that of an end-of-summer county fair. There was plenty of food, lots of T-shirts for sale even some country music. But for the 2,000 or so people gathered on a soggy field in Indianola, south of Des Moines, Palin was the main attraction. It wasnt her first visit to Iowa, home of the nation's first presidential caucus next year.

The National Park Service will dedicate a new memorial to the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 next Saturday, in time for the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The airplane crashed outside the town of Shanksville in southwestern Pennsylvania, and a decade later, it's the only one of the three major Sept. 11 memorials that has yet to be fully funded.

Standing in a pool full of 2-foot-long alligators, Jay Young starts teaching a class on gator wrestling.

"He who hesitates gets bit. Don't think about it," says Young, owner of Colorado Gators. "Alligator wrestling is not a thinking man's sport."

It takes a certain kind of crazy to want to pay $100 to handle animals sensible people run away from. People do sign up, however, ready to try their hands at this most extreme of sports.

Moammar Gadhafi bankrolled and championed the vision of a United States of Africa, with himself as the continental president. As Libya struggles to find its equilibrium on the cusp of what appears to be the post-Gadhafi era, one question is its future as part of Africa.

The African Union has not officially recognized the rebel leadership in Libya, saying "regime change" and outside intervention were wrong.