NPR News

Oh those wacky Australians.

One of the most consistently conservative voices in Congress and a favorite of Tea Party activists across the nation is leaving the Senate.

South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint is resigning to take over as president of the Heritage Foundation.

At first glance, our top picks for 2012 may seem to range far and wide, from a fresh take on an epic late Beethoven string quartet to cellist Maya Beiser playing spaciously layered new music by Michael Harrison. What unites this diverse bunch is a spirit of discovery — not just in new music that we'll return to again and again but in the artistic energy that animates each of these projects.

It's no surprise that how much a person eats determines how full they feel right after a meal. But it's the memory of that meal, and not the meal itself, that matters a couple of hours later. So does this mean you trick yourself into thinness? Probably not. But it does tell us something about the role that manipulating memory may play in calorie intake.

Wanted for questioning in Belize about the murder of a neighbor, anti-virus software pioneer John McAfee is sitting in a Guatemalan jail — and blogging about the experience.

Having the courage to break away from alt-pop cult favorite Stereolab seems to have given Laetitia Sadier a personal charge and social conviction that's on full display throughout her second solo album, Silencio. She casts a spell in this live performance, which places her gorgeous voice in the spotlight where it belongs.

Watch Sadier's full performance at KCRW's website.

How can you get young folks to press their elders to solve the debt and deficit crises?