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Many Americans know Somalia as a lawless country controlled by warlords. Somalia has seen two decades of civil war, and the militant group Al-Shabab continues to fight government forces. NPR's Frank Langfitt, recently returned from Somalia, sheds light on what some call "the most-failed state."

T. Jefferson Parker talks about the latest novel in his Charlie Hood series, The Border Lords, a continuing tale of drugs and guns along the U.S.-Mexico Border.

After the "underwear bomber" incident on Christmas Day, President Obama accelerated the deployment of new airport scanners that look beneath travelers' clothes to spot any weapons or explosives.

Traveling westward along California's Route 66, the Santa Monica Pier rises just as the highway ends and the Pacific coast begins, its marquee Ferris wheel hovering majestically over the ocean. In celebration of the pier's centennial, Renee Montagne walks the wooden planks and speaks to some of the locals.

The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan told a Senate panel Wednesday that militants in Afghanistan were becoming stronger. Gen. David Petraeus said, however, U.S. forces will fight "relentlessly and aggressively" against the militants.

The 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to three Americans for their insights into the fundamental structures of matter -- the forces that bind together quarks. David Gross, David Politzer and Frank Wilczek showed how tiny quark particles interact, helping to explain how a coin spins -- and how the universe was built.

Mexican customs officials have begun screening cars traveling south across the border. The screening program, which hasn't started in Tijuana yet, is an effort to prevent guns and cash from being smuggled into Mexico.

SDSU history professor Clare McKanna talks about the plight of Native Americans in his new book "Court-Martial of Apache Kid, Renegade of Renegades."

The Department of Agriculture introduces a new food pyramid that incorporates a symbol for physical activity. The nutritional guidelines, accompanied by a Web site offering tailored recommendations, are aimed at changing American lifestyles.

Christopher Choy was one of the youngest men on the crew of the Deepwater Horizon, the oil rig leased by BP and anchored in the Gulf of Mexico. When it exploded on April 20, Choy was convinced he wouldn't make it out alive. "This is it," he thought. "We're not gonna get out of here."