With the end of the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy on Tuesday, openly gay men and women began to apply for service or reinstatement. Those already in uniform could, for the first time, choose to speak openly without fear of being discharged.

As of Tuesday night, the Centers for Disease Control and prevention reported that 55 people in 14 states have become infected with one of the strains of Listeria monocytogenes tied to cantaloupes grown at Jensen Farms' production fields in Granada, Colo.

Two U.S. Senators sent a letter to the Justice Department, yesterday, accusing it of misleading the American public about how a section of the Patriot Act is being implemented.

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mark Udall (D-CO) take issue with two things agency officials from both the Obama and Bush administrations have said in the past:

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange found himself on the wrong side of an unauthorized leak of sorts on Thursday when his autobiography was released in Britain without his permission.

British publisher Canongate decided to go ahead and release Julian Assange: The Unauthorized Autobiography because it said Assange received a six-figure advance but then changed his mind and kept the money.

That's one small step for historians ...

We'll stop there and just go to the news:

"An archivist sifting through boxes of former President Bill Clinton's papers and memorabilia from his time as Arkansas governor [has] found a missing moon rock given to the state 35 years ago," the Arkansas News Bureau reports.

The Florida Congressman has been labeled as a rising star within the Republican Party. He speaks with Michel Martin about Obama's jobs plan; the role of his lone conservative voice in the mostly Democratic Congressional Black Caucus; why more blacks aren't making it to elite military teams; and the end of DADT.

Georgia executed Troy Davis Wednesday night for the shooting death of a police officer, despite widespread opposition to the execution and Davis' innocence plea. A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's new book says the Obama White House was a hostile workplace for women. And Dominique Strauss-Kahn confesses to "moral failing." The Beauty Shop women weigh in.

The Palestinian president is set to make a bid for statehood on Friday at the U.N., but President Obama said he'll veto the effort. A new Pew study shows some Americans strongly sympathize with Israel while others strongly support a Palestinian state. Michel Martin explores American public opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with Carroll Doherty, associate director of the Pew Research Center.

We know a little bit more about the fate of that falling weather satellite, the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, which is close to its fiery end. NASA now predicts the UARS will plunge into Earth's lower atmosphere "sometime during the afternoon of Sept. 23, Eastern Daylight Time".