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Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird is in the news again. The city of Chicago has chosen the 1960 classic for The Chicago reading initiative "One Book, One Chicago." The same day Chicago announced the selection, Muskogee High School in Oklahoma removed the book from its required reading list for freshmen. Guest host Melissa Block talks with Mary Dempsey, commissioner for the Chicago Public Library, and Muriel Saunders, a member of the Muskogee School Board in Oklahoma, about the decisions made by both cities. We also hear excerpts from the audio version of the book as narrated by Sally Darling and produced by Recorded Books.

NPR's Tom Gjelten looks for hints at Cuba's future in a battle over one of Cuba's signature products: Cuban rum. The story involves the Bacardi family of Santiago, Cuba, which developed rum in the 19th century, but left after Castro imposed Communism.

An oil painting by Marc Chagall was stolen from the Jewish Museum in New York two months ago. Now there's news that the painting is being held for ransom. The demand: peace in the Middle East in exchange for the painting's return.

As we continue to mark the five year anniversary of the welfare reform law, host Melissa Block talks about the future of the law with Marvin Olasky, author and Senior Fellow at the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, and Rebecca Blank, former adviser to President Bill Clinton and current Dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

Noah Adams talks with Charles Davis, president of Habagallo Foods in McAllen, Texas, about his new cocktail mix for the Michelada cocktail. The New York Times food critic says the drink tasted like the best steak he ever had.

The ostrich-like dinosaurs who thundered across the screen in Jurassic Park may not have been fierce creatures after all. Researchers show that these beaked dinosaurs used their mouthparts as sieves, not daggers - and probably ate plants and small water creatures rather than hunting meat.

In 1999, NPR listeners started sending in their stories to author Paul Auster for broadcast on NPR. The tales are now in a book. Join host Lisa Simeone on Weekend All Things Considered to hear excerpts from I Thought My Father Was God.

NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that the treatment of the Roma -- widely known as Gypsies -- is an important civil rights issue in Europe. This has become especially true since the collapse of Communism, which afforded the Roma more civil protections and economic opportunities. Now, they face ghettoization and discrimination throughout much of central Europe.

Taking up where African icon Fela Kuti left off, NYC-based Antibalas has found a growing audience for its dance-ready Afrobeat style, peppered with Latin and funk flavors. Listen to live cuts from their recent gig at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC.

Doug Anderson reads his poem Crows, recorded earlier this week at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, in Farmington, Connecticut.