Independent gubernatorial candidate Gatewood Galbraith filed the necessary paperwork with the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office Thursday to be on the November ballot, but the perennial contender forgot to bring his campaign treasurer with him. Independent candidates must turn in at least 5,000 signatures to be placed on the general election ballot and Galbraith, who has run for governor four times before, carried 7,396 signatures with him. But state law also requires a candidate’s treasurer sign the proper documents as well.

This morning, Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $50 million grant to the Sierra Club, to be doled out over four years. The Sierra Club says they’ll use the money for their “Beyond Coal”campaign, which works to transition the nation away from coal.The Sierra Club said the gift from Bloomberg will effectively retire one-third of America’s aging coal-fired power plants by 2020, and replace them with clean energy.  The announcement was made in front of a power plant in Alexandria, Virginia, by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune.

With the president praising their plan, and with critics from both sides of the political aisle taking shots at it, the "Gang of Six" is this week at the center of the deficit-reduction talks in Washington.

One of the big-ticket items in any budget deal will have to be the defense budget. The latest budget request calls for spending about $700 billion on defense next year, the highest level since World War II. President Obama has already proposed hundreds of billions of dollars in defense cuts, and proposals by the Senate's "Gang of Six" call for hundreds of billions more over the next decade.

Michele Norris speaks with Dorien Schroeder, a team leader with Ocean's Research, who lived a Jaws-like moment when a great white jumped on deck of her team's research boat after they threw fish into the water to lure sharks closer. This all happened off the coast of South Africa.

Schroeder says the shark was three meters and it managed to curl up in the back part of the board, seemingly unharmed.

The research team released the shark back in the water and it swam away.

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton talks with Michele Norris from the town of Dadaab on the Kenya-Somali border, which is the destination point for thousands of Somali refugees fleeing famine.

Michele Norris talks about an interview that President Obama did with NPR's Michel Martin.

The landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, removing barriers for generations of black voters in the South. But one of its key provisions still sparks controversy.

After a last-minute delay, it looks like the execution of Andrew Grant DeYoung will be videotaped tonight. Yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court decided not to overturn a lower court's decision to allow the first videotaping of an execution since 1992.

But the state Department of Corrections delayed the execution for 24 hours. DeYoung, who was found guilty of killing his parents and his sister, is now scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. ET tonight.

The office of U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., announced Thursday he accepted the All Rise Leadership Award from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. The award was given to several members of Congress Tuesday and is handed out to lawmakers who exhibit a commitment to combating drug related crime and addiction through appropriate court programs.