NPR News

Writer Sybilla Nash agreed to help out a friend by co-signing a mortgage. But after her friend neglected to make payments, Nash's credit score dropped 200 points. Nash wrote about the ordeal for The Huffington Post. She joins host Michel Martin and consumer education expert John Ulzheimer to talk about how to avoid sticky financial situations.

As the BBC puts it, Greece felt like two different places today: On the one had you had an "amicable and symbolic" state visit by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and on the other hand, you had tens of thousands of protesters gathered across Athens who weren't too happy to see her.

When you consider how carefully staged and planned the debates are and how long they've been around, it's remarkable how often candidates manage to screw them up. Sometimes they're undone by a simple gaffe or an ill-conceived bit of stagecraft, like Gerald Ford's slip-up about Soviet domination of eastern Europe in 1976, or Al Gore's histrionic sighing in 2000. Sometimes it's just a sign of a candidate having a bad day, like Ronald Reagan's woolly ramblings in the first debate with Walter Mondale in 1984.

Many parents raise kids who are loud and proud of their heritage. But some have a different approach. Writer Alina Adams is Jewish and her husband is African-American. She says that in some situations, her kids are better off hiding their race and religion. Adams speaks with host Michel Martin.