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Ernesto Miranda, aka "Smokey," was a co-founder of the infamous Mara Salvatrucha gang in Los Angeles. At 38, he was studying law and working to keep kids out of gangs. All that ended Saturday night, when he was shot to death, apparently in retaliation for his anti-gang efforts.

Tulane University in New Orleans held its graduation ceremony Saturday after a traumatic year. Students who held on through Katrina and nine months of recovery heard advice and admonitions from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush.

There are plans to bring a new dump to Uniontown, Ala., where the county commission approved the project because the area desperately needs jobs. Commentator John Fleming says this is the kind of case that has been labeled "environmental racism."

In the first part of a two-part interview, former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins guides us through the new spoken-word four-CD box set Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their Work, 1888-2006.

Everyone suddenly wants to learn Mandarin Chinese. The problem is that there are few credentialed teachers. Now the Chinese government is making plans to develop teaching partnerships with U.S. public school districts.

The government's National Security Agency is building a giant database of all phone calls placed by Americans within the U.S., according to a report published in USA Today. The article says that the spy agency has been helped by major phone companies, including AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

John Ydstie talks with Amanda Congdon, the host of Rocketboom. It's an online newscast of the weird and wonderful. Congdon and Rocketboom have gained a cult following for its offbeat look at the news and the Internet.

A new proposal coming out of Baghdad would give amnesty to prisoners and insurgents. The 28-point initiative is an attempt by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to bring stability to Iraq. The offer, however, excludes terrorists and those who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Commentator Ruth Levy Guyer reflects on the power of wind -- to spark life by spreading seeds, to cause disease by spreading pathogens, and to disturb the psyche. Guyer teaches courses in bioethics and infectious diseases at Haverford College.

The Bush administration says its program to monitor international financial records has a number of safeguards that prevent violation of privacy rights. But critics note that those safeguards are voluntary because this particular type of data tracking isn't covered by U.S. laws against government intrusion into private financial records.