NPR News

Space shuttle Endeavour begins a kind of farewell tour this week. The shuttle will set off on a cross-country trip to its retirement home, flying from Florida to Los Angeles on the back of a modified jumbo jet.

Along the way, the spaceship will stop off in Houston, home of NASA's Mission Control and, weather permitting, fly over NASA centers and various landmarks in cities that include San Francisco and Sacramento.

There is a new crisis in Mexico. It's not the ongoing drug war or a plunge in the peso: It's eggs.

The recent violence sparked by the film Innocence of Muslims recalls a very different controversy from more than 20 years ago:

When it comes to healing the wounds of its troubled racial past, the United States is still in its "adolescent phase," says novelist Attica Locke. The 2008 presidential election changed everything she had been taught about race, she says — and, as an African-American writer, she felt compelled to write about that new reality. The result is The Cutting Season, a thrilling, century-spanning story of two murders.

Details are still emerging about the people who made Innocence of Muslims, a purportedly feature-length film whose online trailer has ignited anti-U.S. protests and violence in Egypt, Libya and other nations. Some of the actors involved have publicly rejected the film — and that list now includes actress Anna Gurji, who asked writer Neil Gaiman for help in making her story public.

Mitt Romney made yet another attempt Monday to narrow President Obama's substantial polling lead over him with Latino voters.

The Republican presidential nominee spoke at the Los Angeles convention of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce where he was respectfully received.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Now to a development surrounding Mitt Romney's campaign. After several days of stumbles on the trail and internal squabbling spilling into public view, Romney's campaign vowed to get back to substance today. Romney delivered a speech to a Latino group in Los Angeles today touting his economic plan and touching on immigration. But the spotlight was stolen by a report on the website Mother Jones.