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Airs Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 12 p.m. on KPBS TV

The economy may be on the rebound, but many cultural institutions are still struggling to regain their financial footing. That's especially true for one of the country's most recognized museums -- the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Known internationally for its research as well as its exhibits, the Field Museum must pay off millions in bond debt -- and toe an ethical line as it does.

An effort to create commemorative Salton Sea license plates has been slow to take off.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to let oil companies continue to dump polluted wastewater on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. This includes chemicals that companies add to the wells during hydraulic fracturing, an engineering practice that makes wells produce more oil.

Memorial Day in San Diego will feature appearances by Republican presidential candidates past and present and the traditional military service at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

A new book combines the memories and culinary skills of one Chinese political dissident who lived through the country's Cultural Revolution. Since food was rationed, Sasha Gong learned to cook with whatever she could find. "There's something about humanity," she says. "It's hard to suppress."

America's hugely productive food system is one of its success stories. The nation will export a projected $139.5 billion in agricultural products this fiscal year alone. It's an industry that supports "more than 1 million jobs," according to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

The Tucson, Ariz., band's newest batch of story-songs about people in transition is titled Algiers, named for the New Orleans neighborhood where it was recorded.

It may sound like a line from The Godfather, but some agricultural specialists advise that farming isn't personal; it's business. And family farms need to think and act more like a business to survive in a competitive world, says Bernie Erven, professor emeritus in the department of agricultural economics at Ohio State University.

Corn production was down last year thanks to drought. This year, conditions are too cold and wet for farmers to plant the crop. Without a break in the clouds pretty soon, there may be another shortage of the crop at harvest time.