NPR News

We've all encountered loose change, loose teeth, and certainly loose-fitting pants, but only a lucky few of us have encountered the Loose Meat Sandwich. It's an Iowa classic that's basically like a hamburger, except the patty doesn't hold together at all. We picked up a couple from Maid-Rite here in Chicago.

Mike: The meat pebbles make it so much easier to fatten up those hard to reach parts of the body.

Leah: I think you have to have baleen to eat this properly.

The U.S. military, along with more than 30 allied countries, has just launched a new round of naval exercises in the Persian Gulf at a time when tensions in the region are running particularly high.

But U.S. officials say the aim is not to increase anxiety, but rather to ensure stability. More specifically, the exercises are designed to deal with mines that could hamper shipping in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil supply transits.

All Tomorrow's Parties is an extra special music festival. Oddly, it's not just about the music. It's about film, comedy, lecture/conversation and new friendships all bound together by everyone's love for eclectic and passionate music. This year, following a move from Asbury Park (which followed a move from its original Catskill mountain hotel home) to a giant pier on southern tip of Manhattan, it felt more like a convention than a camp. Gone was the coziness of hotel lobbies where artists and participants co-mingled at all hours.

After decades of enforced silence, Singaporeans who spent years in jail without charges or trial are shattering a political taboo by speaking out about their detention — and the colonial-era security laws that made it possible.

The affluent trading hub — known for its solid rule of law — still allows the government to detain citizens indefinitely.

But people who say that the laws were used to abuse them and silence their dissenting voices are now talking — which many see as a foreshadowing of bigger political changes for Southeast Asia's wealthiest nation.

Say what you want about Rep. Todd Akin, he's no quitter.

Tuesday is the last day Akin can remove his name from the Missouri ballot as the Republican nominee for Senate. As the deadline approached, he made it clear he has no intention of dropping out.

"For about the hundredth time or so, I am in this race," Akin said at a news conference Monday at the Amtrak station in Kirkwood, a suburb of St. Louis. "The people of Missouri chose me to do a job."