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Journalist Tom Vanderbilt discusses the nonhuman operatives — from pigeons to house cats — deployed by the United States government during the Cold War. He wrote about the program recently for the Smithsonian magazine.

The Nobel Prize in economics will be announced Monday morning in Sweden. This prize is a relatively new one — it was established in 1968 by Sweden's central bank. The prizes announced last week, like the Nobel Peace Prize, were established more than 100 years ago in Alfred Nobel's will.

Chinese exports dropped point 0.3 percent in September from a year earlier. It was the worst performance in three months. Analysts think much of the drop was due to plunging demand from Southeast Asia. Investors have been pulling money out of the region on concern the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut bond purchases and the money supply will tighten.

The world's top financial officials were in Washington, D.C. over the weekend for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The partial government shutdown and the debt ceiling standoff were hot topics among the visiting world financial leaders.

Congress and the White House continue to work through the twin fiscal crises of funding for the federal government and the debt ceiling. Steve Inskeep and David Greene explore the dimensions of this massive political drama with Cokie Roberts, who weighs in on political topics most Mondays on Morning Edition, Robert Costa of the National Review, who's been following developments on Capitol Hill, and Terence Samuel of The Washington Post, who has been following public attitudes nationally.

Fans of the Kansas City Chiefs were recorded howling at more than 137 decibels as the Chiefs defeated Oakland. That decibel level is louder than a rock concert and almost as loud as a jet engine.

A German man was driving back from his honeymoon in France. He pulled over to fuel up, thinking his bride sleeping in the backseat had remained put. She actually got out to use the facilities. He drove on, and more than two hours later he noticed his wife was gone.

Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller won the 2013 economics prize for their work on developing new methods to study trends in asset markets. Fama, 74, and Hansen, 60, are associated with the University of Chicago. Shiller, 67, is a professor at Yale University.

Bob Mondello remembers a Columbus Day 50 years ago made special by what seemed to him a visit to a real-life Camelot — and an unexpected encounter with John F. Kennedy.

After more than 50 years, Bill Baker returns to the island in an effort to analyze his life.

JPMorgan Chase says it will cover Social Security and Welfare payments for its customers if the government goes into default or the shutdown continues. The bank would almost certainly get its money back once Congress comes to an agreement.

A street vendor outside New York's Central Park sold eight prints by the mysterious British street artist who goes by the name Banksy. Some of Banksy's most recognizable works sold for just $60. Many of the pieces are estimated to be worth more than $30,000. It was part of a social experiment.

Angela Ahrendts will oversee the expansion of Apple retail and online stores. It's a newly created position for Ahrendts, who will report directly to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Since taking over Burberry in 2006, Ahrendts has nearly tripled revenue for the company — known for its distinctive tartan patterns.

The calendar says October, but retailers and economists are already analyzing the holiday shopping season. With budget battles gripping Washington and an economy that's still recovering, there are mixed feelings about how far shoppers will open their wallets.

With the debt ceiling deadline looming just two days away, Senate leaders say they're close to a deal that would reopen the government and avert default. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have been leading bipartisan talks on a way out of the deadlock. Even if a bipartisan agreement clears the Senate, it will likely be a hard sell to House Republicans.

Two explorers have discovered more than a mile of caves underneath a glacier on Mt. Hood near Portland, Oregon. They suspect the beautiful formations account for a significant loss of the glacier's ice, and they have set out to measure how much the inside of the glacier is melting each year. It's dangerous work, but it could reveal that some glaciers in the Pacific Northwest are retreating faster than anyone realized.

Hidden deep in the hills of Appalachia, there's a tradition of worship music that has not changed since the 18th century. The hymnody is still practiced by congregations of the Old Regular Baptist Church, where a leader calls out a line and the people respond in a mournful, soaring chorus.

Also: Alice Walker will publish her diaries; Donna Tartt takes aim at grammar snobs; Carl Bernstein is writing a memoir about his early days.

Anne Rice has just released the second book in her "Wolf Gift" series, The Wolves of Midwinter. It continues the story of a young San Francisco journalist bitten by a werewolf. Critic Alan Cheuse says that while the dialogue is stilted at times, he's enjoyed watching Rice create another world of "strangeness and transformations."

Also: A published report claims the NSA collects email and IM contact lists worldwide; another dry ice "bomb" is discovered at Los Angeles's airport; and Macy's has decided to open on Thanksgiving night for the holiday shopping season.