NPR Topics: Story of the Day Podcast

Today's political polarization makes it seem harder than ever to tackle climate change. Republican Bob Dixson says the goals of going green aren't only for liberals. His town of Greensburg was hit by an unusually strong tornado, and now he's working on a White House task force to prepare communities like his.

Actress Mia Farrow and two of her children have revived allegations that the film director sexually abused his daughter more than 20 years ago. The charges and countercharges are playing out not in the legal system but in social media, on blogs and in big-name publications.

New research shows a big part of the woolly mammoth's diet was made up of tiny flowers rather than grass. When the flowers disappeared, the mammoths did, too.

Bureaucracy and mammoth student loans weren't part of the package for Dr. Michael Sawyer's father and grandfather. Still, like them, he feels medicine is a calling. A fourth generation of Sawyers is thinking about whether to carry on the tradition.

Don't give in to that midwinter swoon. Listen to this instead: More than 800 of you, our listeners, shared songs to quicken the blood and make you move. Inside, find our Cabin Fever Playlist — 84 tracks meant to wake you from even the deepest hibernation.

Fraudsters know that small credit transactions often go unnoticed. That's made it easy for a widespread scam involving unauthorized charges of $9.84 to fly under the radar. Complaints started coming in about the scam soon after a massive data breach in November, but analysts say it goes back months.

From sodas to truffles to butter, foods infused with THC — the chemical in marijuana that gives you a high — are already for sale in Colorado. But the federal government still considers pot illegal, so the state has to create from scratch its own system to regulate these foods.

During his 10-year career, Sean Morey absorbed countless hits, more than a few of which resulted in concussions. "Every time I hit somebody it was like getting tasered," he says. Now, he suffers from lingering conditions, like debilitating headaches, and is an advocate for players' health.

Drillers pumping oil on the Great Plains are also producing a lot of natural gas. But the state doesn't have the infrastructure to transport or store it, so much of that gas isn't being sold — it's being set on fire.

When you hear the words bubonic plague, Black Death usually comes to mind. But the first plague pandemic happened 800 years earlier, when the Justinian plague wiped out nearly a quarter of the world's population. Scientists have decoded the bacteria responsible, which have roots in China.

When Tucker West was 6, his father built an 800-foot-long luge track in their backyard. Now, at 18, West is the youngest member of the U.S. Olympic luge team.

In January 1914, Henry Ford started paying his auto workers a remarkable $5 a day. Doubling the average wage helped ensure a stable workforce and likely boosted sales since the workers could now afford to buy the cars they were making. It laid the foundation for an economy driven by consumer demand.

Adopted by loving white parents as a baby 42 years ago, Chad Goller-Sojourner was an adult before he could love his own reflection. He tells the story of what life was like growing up in a family of a different race than his own.

There's been a groundswell of support for coding education — "developer evangelists" host 24-hour code-a-thons and there's talk of teaching coding as early as kindergarten. But one critic says that's overkill. Afterall, he says, just because you drive a car doesn't mean that you have to be an auto mechanic.

Scientists have unveiled an atomic clock that sets new records in timekeeping — it could run 5 billion years without gaining or losing a second. That sort of precision is not trivial, researchers say. Clocks have ripple effects for all kinds of technology, from cellphones to GPS and more.