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NPR's Bob Mondello looks at two documentaries — Six by Sondheim and Tim's Vermeer — that delve deep into the creation of art, whether it's a sprawl of Broadway songs or a 17th-century oil painting.

For 27 years, Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island for his fight against South Africa's apartheid regime. Saki Macozoma served time on Robben Island alongside Mandela in the 1970s, and he joins Robert Siegel to remember Mandela, who died Thursday at age 95.

NPR's Planet Money team is manufacturing its own T-shirt. After the women's shirt was assembled in Colombia, they voyaged by container ship to Miami. The container, a big standardized box that moves easily from truck to ship to train, is the unsung hero of the global economy.

Speaking on the occasion of his 86th birthday, the ailing monarch asked Thais to do their duty to ensure stability and security in the nation.

Brazil's state oil company Petrobras lost 15 percent of its market value this week — that's some $10 billion. Analysts predict more trouble ahead for the oil giant.

The Labor Department on Friday said the nation's unemployment rate fell to 7 percent, a five-year low, as U.S. employers added 203,000 jobs to payrolls in November. In October, the unemployment rate was 7.3 percent.

Morning Edition reports on the music that sustained Nelson Mandela and other members of the anti-apartheid movement while they were in a South African prison. Many of them were huge reggae fans.

For the first time in its history, Pakistan is poised to put a former president and army chief of staff on trial. A special court has been convened to hear allegations against General Pervez Musharraf. He's charged with committing treason after he suspended the nation's constitution in 2007 and declared a state of emergency.

Morning Edition remembers some of Nelson Mandela's most memorable speeches. The former South African president died on Thursday at the age of 95.

Also: The jobless rate falls in November; hurricane-strength winds hit England; Biden demands North Korea end its nuclear program; Shanghai gets one of its worst smog events ever; and pot smokers will celebrate marijuana legalization in Washington state with a party today.

When bees disappeared from central China years ago, Chinese apple farmers had to pollinate by hand. Embarrassing — people doing bees' work, but then came the big discovery –- a surprise that still haunts the conservation movement. What if people outperform bees?

Drawing from research presented at this year's Acoustical Society of America conference, psycholinguist Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel untangles tongue twisters to look at speech planning patterns, and professor Amalia Arvaniti discusses the "Valley Girl" dialect.

Radiant Orchid is the new "in" color for 2014, according to the institute, which gave us Emerald this year.

The Labor Department released the jobs report for November on Friday morning. The report showed that 204,000 jobs were added to payrolls last month and the unemployment rate dropped to 7 percent, a five-year low.

The news of Nelson Mandela's death came as dozens of African leaders gathered in Paris for a two-day summit on building peace and security across the continent. Though Mandela's death overshadowed other issues, it also reinforce participants' determination to make progress.

College football fans have just one last chance to complain about the Bowl Championship Series after this weekend. Since it was started in 1998, the complicated ranking system has determined which two teams will play for the national championship. The BCS has rankled fans and media alike every single year since then. But the era, if not the angst, is over; the BCS is gone after this season, and will be replaced by a four team playoff. Sportswriter Stefan Fatsis is happy to see it go and gives Robert Siegel a primer of which teams are likely in or out of the BCS Championship Game this year.

The South African leader, a former boxer, knew hosting the Rugby World Cup in 1995 would be an opportunity to bring the country together. Host Scott Simon speaks with journalist John Carlin, author of the book that later became the movie Invictus, about Nelson Mandela's shrewd use of sports.

Americans David Harris-Gershon and his wife were studying in Israel when she was nearly killed in a terrorist attack at a cafe. Harris-Gershon decided he needed to meet the family of the terrorist behind the attack, and wrote about that experience in his book, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?

Every answer is the name of a famous person whose first and last names start with the same consonant or group of consonants. You're given rhymes for the two names. You name the people. For example, if given "cycle four," the answer would be "Michael Moore."