NPR Topics: Story of the Day Podcast

This week marked a new step in Michelle Obama's evolution as first lady. In her hometown of Chicago, she delivered one of the most emotional speeches of her career. Obama almost never ventures into the top political controversy of the day, but her role may be changing.

With a large labor force willing to work for low wages, construction may appear to be a lucrative field for contractors in Texas. But prices have been driven so low that many say they can't compete if they play by the rules. Instead, some misclassify their workers or turn a blind eye to undocumented laborers.

Cities are finding beneficial and lucrative ways to dispose of solid waste, while also helping farmers. But a lot of sewage still ends up in landfills or being processed at big, industrial incinerators.

The Canon-sponsored Project Imaginat10n used social media to crowdsource images and ideas to produce five short films. It's an idea director Ron Howard says other artists would be foolish to ignore.

Residents in Memphis, Tenn., are thrilled that Swedish appliance giant Electrolux is opening a new factory there this year. The company plans to employ 1,200 people at the new, high-tech facility. But in Webster, Iowa, an Electrolux plant closure in 2011 has left the local economy reeling.

Military leaders, lawmakers and advocates have long agreed that a cultural shift needs to happen to encourage servicemen and women to come forward and report sexual assault. At the Wright-Patterson base in Dayton, Ohio, young airmen are being trained to spot and report abuse.

Americans hold about $1 trillion in student loans, and the debt burden is only getting heavier. One financial aid counselor says students are starting to smarten up and asking questions he'd never considered himself before the recession hit.

Every year 10 million people funnel in and out of America's jails and prisons. And every year some of them get lost. Recently there have been two high-profile cases of such inmates — one who got out years too early, and one who stayed years to long. Both had disastrous consequences.

Philosophers, poets and psychologists have long shared a fascination with dreams. Now Japanese scientists have scanned the brains of dreaming volunteers to create a lexicon of imagery that can be used to detect and decode dreams while a person sleeps.

Social networks now hold tremendous power to regulate online speech. Their rules for allowable comments, art and video govern billions of posts worldwide each day. And while Twitter users enjoy a great deal of freedom, Facebook has relatively tight restrictions on what users can say and see.

While being forced to tick a single box for "race" has never been a problem for George Washington III, who is black, his mixed-race children see it differently. And for Dave Kung, being allowed to check two races on the U.S. Census form for the first time prompted an unexpected outpouring of emotion.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency could soon issue a final ruling that aims to force oil companies to replace E10, gasoline mixed with 10 percent ethanol, with E15. This move could come just as widespread support for ethanol, which is made from corn, appears to be eroding.

New details about one of Mississippi's most infamous murders are coming to light — more than a half-century later. The death of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy who allegedly whistled at a white woman, helped spark the civil rights movement.

After all the acrimony and debate, many Americans still don't know whether their states are going to expand Medicaid or set up health care exchanges. A lot of the confusion over the Affordable Care Act comes, in part, from a commanding "misinformation and disinformation" campaign.

H&R Block claims it's equipped to guide you through the Affordable Care Act and the law's implications for your taxes this year. But the law doesn't really affect 2012 returns.