A mystifying development in the investigation of the alleged Boston Marathon bombing suspects came early Wednesday morning when an F.B.I. agent shot and killed a Chechen man named Ibragim Todashev in Orlando, Florida. Phillip Martin, Senior Investigative Reporter for The Takeaway's partner WGBH in Boston, explains Todashev's involvement with Tsnarnaevs. 

Tax day is upon us. Did you reduce your tax burden this year by giving to charity? According to our next guest, the answer to the question might depend on your tax bracket. Ken Stern has written a piece in the Atlantic about who gives to charities and why he thinks the poor end up giving more than the rich. It's called Why the Rich Don’t Give to Charity. 

In Austin, Texas a new innovative project is in the works. This week, Google and the city of Austin announced a deal to launch the next city-wide super-high-speed internet project, known as Google Fiber. The first installment was in Kansas City, now it's coming to Austin.

The Catholic Church has finally elected its first pope from the Americas. But could you ever imagine a female pope? Or even women members in the conclave that chooses the pope?

Imagine telling the story of the war in Iraq from the perspective of one young Iraqi who cared deeply about his country and who also worked on the front lines as an Arabic interpreter. It's a story of the war through one young man named Muhammad, and nicknamed Roy to protect his identity and that of his family.

This month marks 10 years since the start of the American war in Iraq. In military operations alone, the war totaled over $800 billion and largely defined by America's counterinsurgency efforts in the region. General David Petraeus, who led American military operations in Iraq, was the main proponent of the ...

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s deeply polarizing president, died Tuesday.  He was 58. His death leaves open questions about the future of the country-- and about the real impact of his legacy. Hannah Strange is Latin American Correspondent for the London Times; Phil Gunson is a Caracas based freelance journalist, who writes for The Economist; and Elio Aponte is founder of the Organizacion de Venezolanos en Exilo.

If you're a civilian employee working for the Defense Department, you've been put on notice. The sequester is very real and it's extremely likely you are gonna feel the effects of it soon. About 800,000 employees received notification that a furlough could be on the way. J. David Cox is the president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal employees.

Imagine yourself reclined on a cruise ship, sipping piña coladas, and leisurely moving through the ocean to the next stop along your week-long journey. What could be more idyllic? Now, imagine the thick clouds of smoke, the swarms of tourists and all of the noise that cruise ships bring.

Fifty years ago this week, Betty Friedan published "The Feminine Mystique."  The groundbreaking feminist text proclaimed that the stalled rigidity of sexual roles was out of step with the other transformations taking place in the 20th century.  Marcia Ann Gillespie, editor in chief of Ms. Magazine and freelance journalist Anna Holmes, founder of the website Jezebel explain how Friedan's book influenced them, and what work remains left for proponents of gender rights fifty years after its publication.

Detroit may be on the brink of insolvency. This is not the first time a US city has hit run into major financial problems. Cleveland did so in 1978, Philadelphia in 1991 and New York in the late 1970s.  Jonathan Soffer, associate professor of history at Polytechnic Institute of New York University and author of "Ed Koch: and the Rebuilding of New York" explains what lessons Detroit can learn from these other cities-- and in particular, from New York.

More than a third of American workers regularly eat lunch at their desks, and more than half plan on doing work while they're on vacation. But Tony Schwartz, author of "Be Excellent at Anything" says we're doing it all wrong — and that the trick to getting more out of work is to do less.

The Post Master General says that he has no choice but to cut Saturday mail delivery given the billions of dollars of debt in which the organization finds itself. Once upon a time the Postal Service delivered many, many times each day.

What if protecting civilians from drone attacks was approached as a design challenge, rather than a legal one? Asher J. Kohn, a law student at Washington University at Saint Louis, recently audited an architecture class where he decided to imagine a drone-proof city.

While North Korea has repeatedly threatened to strike the United States, a threat made yesterday to target the United States was significantly more explicit. A statement from the North Korean National Defense Commission referred to the United States as the "sworn enemy of the Korean people."

In a landmark decision that overturns a 1994 ruling, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has lifted the military’s ban on women in combat. The move will make hundreds of thousands of front-line jobs available to women. Kristen Rouse is a first lieutenant in the Army National Guard who just returned from her third tour in Afghanistan, and Rosa Brooks is a law professor at Georgetown University and former Pentagon official.

Coming up, an update on a story we brought you earlier in the month about the size of Iran's intelligence agency. Justin Elliot, a reporter for Pro Publica, analyzes the number and its original source.

The violent flashpoint between militant Islamic extremists in North Africa and western-backed governments struggling to contain them has been unfolding over the past few days in Algeria. Robert Fowler, Canada's former ambassador to the U.N., knows this history well. During his ambassadorship, Fowler was kidnapped by Al Qaeda militants and held hostage for more than four months.

As we think about the formality of the upcoming inaugeration on Monday we remember a time in American history, fifty years ago, when a momentous transfer of power occurred without any forethought, without ritual, and without inauguration at all. Lyndon B. Johnson library director Mark UpdeGrove has the story.

Robert Frost marked the beginning a new tradition when he read "The Gift Outright" at President John F. Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural. In both of his inauguration ceremonies, President Barack Obama has chosen to put poetry front and center. Renowned poet Kwame Dawes discusses the very American tradition of inaugural poetry.