President Obama's nominee to head the Pentagon faced questions from senators on Thursday. Leon Panetta is currently the Director of the CIA and is expected to be confirmed. But senators still had plenty of questions for Panetta at his confirmation hearing about defense spending and the war in Afghanistan. NPR's Tamara Keith reports.

Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he is staying in the race. On Thursday, 16 members of his staff resigned. Steve Inkseep and Linda Wertheimer talk to NPR's Don Gonyea about why the staff may have resigned. They'll also discuss GOP candidate Mitt Romney's decision not to participate in one of the most watched straw polls in the presidential campaign season.

Republicans in Iowa are disappointed that GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney will not participate in the Iowa straw poll in August. It is considered one of the marquee events of the Iowa campaign, and it's by far the most-watched straw poll in the presidential election campaign season.

John Stineman, a long-time Iowa GOP strategist, says the problem for Romney is that the expectations game is far tougher than it is for any other candidate.

In the arts calendar, some weekends are busier that ever.  Rich Copley of the Lexington Herald Leader offers an explanation.  Plus, he previews the Great American Brass Band Festival, A Grand Night for Singing, the Festival of the Bluegrass and an organist convention, which all take place this weekend in central Kentucky.

The snowpack in the Rocky Mountains has been gradually thinning over much of the past century, and a new study attributes much of that to global warming.

This year is a notable exception — unusually heavy snowfall throughout the Rockies this winter has caused a lot of flooding and water-management headaches downstream. But taking the long view, the trend is toward less and less snow.

Have al-Qaida and other militant groups wormed into Pakistan's military?

It's an explosive question, considering that Pakistan's armed forces are vital U.S. allies and also guardians of a stockpile of nuclear weapons. And that was the question a Pakistani journalist addressed in an article written shortly before he was murdered last week.

Saleem Shahzad reported on last month's militant attack on a Pakistani naval base in Karachi. He quoted anonymous sources who linked that attack to the discovery of suspected al-Qaida operatives inside the navy itself.

Long before the iPod, there was the Walkman. Then, the CD, the DVD and Blu-ray. Over the decades, Sony has contributed to or invented some of the most significant consumer products in the world.

Of course, the company is also in the entertainment business. Sony makes movies, the cameras to make movies, and the Blu-ray players and TVs people watch them on at home. It also make video games.

Two new elements were officially added to the periodic table this month. The elements were discovered years ago, but they needed approval from an international committee before they could be placed on the famous chart. We asked Ian Chillag and Mike Danforth, producers of NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me and hosts of the podcast How To Do Everything, to explore how the process works:

How To Make A New Element

Tropical diseases like dengue fever sound as if they belong in faraway places. But in the past several years, some have begun showing up in the continental U.S.

Now in Key West, Fla., public health officials are combating a scourge they thought they'd eradicated seven decades ago.

Dengue Back After Long Absence

Until recently, a locally contracted case of dengue fever had not been seen in Florida since 1934. That suddenly changed in 2009, when doctors in Key West began seeing it in people who had not traveled outside the area.

Jon Gnarr is an absurdist Icelandic comedian. Last year, he ran for mayor of Reykjavik. Like most absurdist comedians, he had no political experience.

"I just invented a new political party," he says. "I was not drunk or anything."

Gnarr called his party the "Best Party." Because what could be better than the best party?

He created a 10-point campaign platform — with 13 points.