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The robot orbiter will take 10 months to reach the red planet, where scientists hope it will solve an enduring mystery about radical climate change in Mars' distant past.

Authorities are releasing a few more details about the Islamist extremists who held siege at a Kenyan mall for four days in September, including the gym at which they bulked up before the attack.

Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant successfully removed some radioactive fuel from one of the damaged reactors on Monday. It's an important first step, but there's a long way to go before the situation at the plant can be said to be completely under control

Secretary of State John Kerry has been urging Congress to hold off a new sanctions on Iran to see how diplomacy plays out. But many lawmakers are skeptical and cite concerns from Israel that the deal under consideration isn't worth easing up on sanctions yet. Kerry's spokesperson dismissed an Israeli official's account of the proposed deal as "inaccurate, exaggerated and not based on reality." And the secretary himself reportedly told senators behind closed doors that they should disregard the Israeli reports about the deal. Kerry's also been more vocal lately about Israeli settlement building in the West Bank as his other priority, Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, falter.

In softcover nonfiction, Yang Jisheng digs into the man-made roots of a famine, Alan Light explores a "Hallelujah" that's been worshipped by listeners, and Eve LaPlante uncovers the mother-daughter bond that helped inspire Little Women.

The machine, housed at the National Super Computer Center in Guangzhou, can perform nearly 34 quadrillion calculations per second.

A car bomb at the Iranian embassy in southern Beirut killed two dozen people and highlighted the spillover tensions from the civil war in Syria next door. Steve Inskeep talks to Anne Barnard, the Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times.

The Oxford Dictionary says the smartphone self-portrait perfectly captures 2013.

Brooklyn writer Kyle Ayers says he was on his apartment rooftop when he witnessed a breakup. So he decided to tweet what the man and woman were saying.

A portion of the $13 billion JPMorgan Chase mortgage settlement will go to anti-blight measures across the country. One of the groups that might receive some of those funds is the Thriving Communities Institute in Cleveland, Ohio. Melissa Block talks with the non-profit's director, Jim Rokakis, about how the group tries to fight blight by establishing land banks, demolishing vacant properties and finding new ways to use the land.

A long-awaited deal between JP Morgan Chase and the Justice Department was finalized Tuesday. The bank — one of Wall Street's largest — agreed to pay a total of $13 billion to resolve a number of legal issues stemming from mortgage securities sold in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The London mayor has been urging people to get around by bike for years. And this year, 14 London cyclists have been killed — a higher casualty count than that of the British military in Afghanistan. In each fatal accident, a heavy truck was involved.

Envoys from Iran and six world powers are set to resume talks in Geneva Wednesday on Iran's suspect nuclear program. Considerable progress was made in the last round on an interim deal that would temporarily freeze Iran's nuclear program while easing some of the international economic sanctions. There are cautious hopes on both sides that the interim deal can be finalized at this session.

Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen is competing in the 2013 World Chess Championships. Melissa Block speaks with Joran Jansson, president of the Norwegian Chess Federation, for more on his rise to a number one ranking and what his popularity means for the game of chess.

Federal police removed thousands of protesting teachers Friday from the main downtown plaza where they had camped out for weeks. The teachers are angry about a new education law that takes power away from their union.

NPR's Deborah Amos speaks with host Scott Simon about the war in Syria, including the recent fight for a small Christian town in the hills north of Damascus. The town is under attack by hard-line Islamist militants.

Urban explorer Steve Duncan goes underground, examining the hidden infrastructure of major cities all over the world: their tunnels, subways and sewers. Late in 2010, NPR's Jacki Lyden joined Duncan and a group of subterranean adventurers in New York. (This story originally aired on All Things Considered on Jan. 2, 2011.)

Author Jesmyn Ward lost her brother in a car wreck — and several friends in quick succession after that — all young black men, all dead before the age of 30. She tells their stories, and her own, in a wrenching new memoir, Men We Reaped.

The trial of the men accused of the horrific rape and murder of a young woman in Delhi is over. Four of the accused were sentenced to death. NPR's Julie McCarthy joins host Rachel Martin from New Delhi to discuss the question of whether anything will change.

The U.S.-Russia deal to destroy Syrian chemical weapons is being called one of the most challenging in the history of arms control. Host Rachel Martin speaks to Dmitri Trenin, the director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, about Russia's position and influence on Syria.