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We've all had these moments in movie theaters or in meetings when we hear the annoying ring of a phone and suddenly realize, to our horror, that it's our own phone. Engineers are trying to solve this problem. They're developing polite cell phones that can tell when to keep quiet, and when it's OK to interrupt.

Renee Montagne talks to Scott Silliman, executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, at Duke University, to learn more about how the McCain amendment will affect U.S. policy on interrogation.

The beginning of January marks the deadline for most college admissions applications. The Unversity of Virginia's freshmen may not be anxious to revisit this period, but they can anyway: A play called Voices of the Class, 2009 offers adaptations of their application essays.

Foreign aid can be a mixed blessing. For a while, in one small Nigerian town, the money flowed. Five years later assistance came to an end, and that left thousands of orphans to fend for themselves. NPR’s Brenda Wilson reports.

The massive, fatal waves that resulted from Sunday's powerful earthquake in Southeast India are among the most destructive tsunamis of the past 50 years. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii.

Spies spend their whole careers hiding secrets from family and close friends. Yet, when they retire, they don't necessarily disappear into history. Many of them turn around and publish memoirs. We discuss what's behind the urge to spy and tell. Is it bad for sources — or the agencies?

The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a deficit of $368 billion for the current fiscal year, a $20 billion jump from its prediction last fall. The numbers do not include the additional $80 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Bush administration has said it will seek from Congress.

Curly Musgrave's "Escalante Adios" tells of the federal government taking grazing lands away from ranchers in southern Utah to make a new national park. With the help of the Western Folklife Center, we look at the story behind the music, as part of our occasional series, "What's in a Song."

In the West, new ways are emerging to make ranching compatible with preservation. For financial incentives, ranchers keep their lands away from developers and try to preserve fragile desert landscapes.

President Bush nominates Undersecretary of State John Bolton to be the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has been critical of the United Nations, but he insists his past remarks will not hinder his effectiveness as a diplomat.