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Crowning the Duke of Wellington with a traffic cone is a tradition in Glasgow, Scotland. Frustrated officials wanted to raise the 1844 statue to a height that could keep the cones off the duke's head. Removing them costs the city $160 each time. But the effort to elevate the duke was stopped by a petition.

A U.N. report on the Afghan poppy harvest shows a sharp increase in cultivation and says the production of opium could rise 50 percent. The Pentagon has already pointed to the increase and says the Taliban is involved in protecting the poppy fields and controlling the drug routes. Besides funding the Taliban, officials say the increased opium yield will only add to one of the most nagging problems in the country: government corruption.

Audie Cornish talks to Ben Blatt of Slate about how to apply game theory to the popular daytime game show, The Price Is Right.

The deaths occurred at the base near San Diego during what officials have described as a range maintenance operation.

As technical problems with the government's new health insurance marketplace slow the pace of sign-up, a variety of "fixes" have been proposed. But some of these would create their own challenges. In rough order from least to most disruptive, here are some of the ideas.

Bitcoin is an online currency backed by nothing except faith that others will accept it. A young American couple wondered how far could they could push it. The Wall Street Journal reports the couple traveled to three continents, and managed to persuade merchants everywhere to accept the currency. Almost everywhere — they did go hungry for a night in Stockholm.

Congress has a little less than two months to head off $20 billion of cuts to the Pentagon budget. It's the second wave of mandated sequestration that kicked in this year. Military contractors say more cuts would be catastrophic.

The first woman to be nominated to head the Federal Reserve takes the witness chair on Capitol Hill Thursday morning for her confirmation hearing. Janet Yellen's challenge will be to reassure her Democratic supporters that she's focused on job creation, while convincing at least a few Republicans that she'll keep inflation in check.

The official death toll from the typhoon is expected to keep rising — thousands are still missing. Aid continues to come into the Philippines from around the world, but its flow is being hampered by poor logistics. The central government is being blamed for not doing more.

When it comes to computer technology and the Internet, the federal government seems to have a tough time getting it right. That's the lesson not just from the recent health care website, but from years of trouble in the recent past.

Also: a new short story from Romesh Gunesekera; Patricia Cornwell on why she might have been an archaeologist.

Live at Carnegie Hall captures a riveting experience with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a beloved conductor, James Levine, who has been plagued with a variety of medical troubles.

Katie Couric's leap to Yahoo! has been hailed as a landmark and criticized as an awkward misstep. But Eric Deggans sees in both Couric and Yahoo! media brands struggling to find a way forward.

NPR has obtained the findings of a CBS internal investigation of an inaccurate 60 Minutes report by Lara Logan. CBS was forced to admit that one of the story's central figures fabricated an eyewitness account.

A Massachusetts woman is getting a lot of attention in the Arab world where she's advanced to the final of Arabs Got Talent. Jennifer Grout can't speak Arabic, but she sings flawlessly in Arabic.

World powers are scrambling to get a hold of a crisis in Central African Republic that U.N. officials have warned could lead to genocide. The nation slipped into bloody anarchy after rebels ousted the president in March.

The United States military flew two B-52 bombers into air space that China recently designated as an air defense identification zone. The showdown is part of a larger dispute involving China and Japan and territorial rights in the East China Sea.

Audie Cornish speaks with Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who is vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, about the Iran deal.

Much of the criticism of the interim nuclear deal reached with Iran Sunday has focused on the sanctions relief Iran will receive over the next six months if it follows through on restricting its nuclear program. Although the only irreversible relief being offered is a gradual release of $4.2 billion in frozen Iranian revenue, critics warn that the "architecture of the sanctions regime has been undermined." Analysts say all the important sanctions hampering Iran's economy remain in place, but the announcement of the deal itself is having a psychological impact on markets. Asian energy importers will be looking to benefit, as will Turkey and Dubai.

Even as the Supreme Court takes up the issue of emergency contraception coverage, a new study suggests the most popular form of the drug might not work for most American women. It seems one formulation of the popular drug loses effectiveness in women who are obese or who weigh over a certain amount.