NPR News

On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner answered criticisms that Republicans have not proposed a deficit plan to counter the one from President Obama which they find so objectionable. Boehner's plan takes elements from presidential nominee Mitt Romney's proposal. David Welna talks to Melissa Block about the counteroffer.

Life can be especially cruel for girls growing up on Kenya's Swahili Coast. Some families sell their daughters to earn the bride price, while others encourage them to become child prostitutes for tourists. The girls drop out of school and have babies, and their childhoods are stolen. Now, a coalition of educators, religious and traditional leaders is fighting back.

Thirteen teenage girls — all with babies on their laps — are gathered around a table in the town hall of Msabaha village, not far from the beach resort of Malindi.

The Wallflowers recently reconnected, or "rebooted" so to speak, to release their first studio album since 2005's Rebel, Sweetheart, and with a slightly tweaked line-up they pick up right where they left off. It's safe to say that Dylan and the band — which includes founding member Rami Jaffee on keyboards, long-term bassist Greg Richling, Stuart Mathis on guitar and newly acquired drummer Jack Irons — have recharged their collective creative battery. Glad All Over is an energized collection of signature tunes from The Wallflowers that fans have been itching for.

It's hard to say anything about Guards without eventually bringing up Cults, another band from Brooklyn whose upbeat melodic pop draws heavy influence from the '60s. The two groups share more than just stylistic influences, though: Singer and bandleader Richie Follin is the brother of Madeline Follin, Cults' lead singer. In fact, a handful of the songs Richie Follin has released with Guards began their lives as Cults tunes.

Ten years after jumpstarting Mitt Romney's political career with a widely-praised Winter Olympics, officials in Utah say they're ready to do it all over again.

But there's no word on whether the unemployed Romney is interested in reprising his role as Salt Lake City Olympics chief. He would be 78, after all, when the 2026 games roll around. That's the earliest opportunity for a Winter Olympics in the United States.

During the presidential campaign, President Obama said that one of things he would do more of during his second term is engage the American people. One attempt at such a thing came on Wednesday, when the White House announced the #My2K Twitter hashtag that they hoped Americans would use to continue debating the "fiscal cliff."

Kishi Bashi, my favorite new artist of the year, now has a holiday song. It's such a great way to bring us back around to a musician I first discovered while sifting through 1,300 songs for the South by Southwest music festival back at the beginning of the year. We all ended up falling in love with his music.