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As the world pays tribute to Nelson Mandela, Ghana's president, John Dramani Mahama, remembers the effect the elder statesman had on his own political career. Mahama shares his memories with host Michel Martin.

President Obama ordered that U.S. flags be flown at half-staff until Monday — a symbolic gesture of a nation in mourning. It's a tradition observed by countries around the world, one that began as early as the 17th century.

Currently the world's No. 14 team, the U.S. must finish in the top two among Germany (No. 2), Portugal (No. 5) and Ghana to advance. Another group will pit England against Italy, Uruguay and Costa Rica. The tournament begins in Brazil in June.

The only person known to have been cured of AIDS got a bone marrow transplant, so when two AIDS patients in Boston appeared to be free of the virus after transplants, scientists hoped they were cured, too. But the HIV virus has returned in both.

In "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us," a 26,000-word investigative piece in TIME magazine, journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill catalogues the myriad reasons for America's skyrocketing healthcare costs, from extravagantly paid administrators at nonprofit hospitals to bloated bills for hospital care. And Obamacare, he argues, won't do much to solve the problem.

Drawing from research presented at this year's Acoustical Society of America conference, psycholinguist Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel untangles tongue twisters to look at speech planning patterns, and professor Amalia Arvaniti discusses the "Valley Girl" dialect.

For 25 seasons, The Simpsons writers have been smuggling math onto Americans' TV screens. Author Simon Singh helps Ira decode the show's numberplay, while former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen remembers how he helped Homer solve Fermat's Last Theorem (sort of).

The New York Times calls Stephen Sondheim the "greatest and perhaps best-known artist in American musical theater." Sondheim composed the music and lyrics for, among others, Sweeney Todd, Into the Woods and Company. In 2010 he joined Fresh Air to discuss his career in musical theater.

Here's something you haven't heard in years: The U.S. economy had a great week, with reports showing jobs being created in several sectors, new-home sales surging and factories humming. Oh, and unemployment is the lowest it's been since 2008.

Officials in China's commercial capital ordered schoolchildren to stay indoors, construction to halt and even delayed flights because of the city's highest-ever pollution levels.