While flooding along the swollen Mississippi River continues to take its toll on Louisiana communities, farmers in neighboring Texas are reeling from a deepening drought. Texas grain farmer Curt Mowery talks about how he's dealing with the extremely dry conditions.

Veteran storm chasers Jeff and Kathyrn Piotrowski have been to many of the cities and towns hit during this year's record-breaking tornado season. From the road on their way to Oklahoma City, the husband and wife describe what they've seen and what it's like to run toward a storm — instead of away from it.

On Saturday's program, host Rachel Martin talked with Maj. Gen. John Campbell, who's just back from being the top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan. For Memorial Day, Campbell talks about how he honors the troops who lost their lives in Afghanistan: He keeps their stories on index cards, which he carries with him at all times.

When Jeffrey Strong graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in music performance, his plan was to find work playing trumpet in a symphony. Instead, he ended up joining one of the most elite orchestras in the country — the U.S. Marine Band. He plays and tells the story of the group known as "the president's iPod."

President Obama visited the devastated area around Joplin, Mo., for the first time on Sunday. He said the nation will be with the devastated city "every step of the way."

A week of destructive weather has torn up the nation's midsection — with tornadoes from Texas to Oklahoma City to Joplin, Mo., which a week later continues to dig out from the deadliest twister in more than 60 years. We take a look back at the week and hear from Alabamans still coming to grips with the damage.

Public schools throughout the nation are spending more money per student as education funding slightly increases, according to the most recent census data, which reviews public education funding for 2008-09. But locally, school officials say state funding has dropped over the years, forcing them to make cuts and enforce higher local taxes to offset the funding slice. State funds make up a bulk of the districts’ budgets.

Saturday marked the 34th anniversary of the fire that raged through Northern Kentucky's Beverly Hills Super Club, killing 165 people. Though unhappy that people still cannot have legal access to the site to pay their respects, especially those directly affected by that fateful night, Dave Brock is fighting a much larger battle: exposing what he believes is the truth of what really happened May 28, 1977. Brock had been a busboy at the club for five years, and was working the night it burned down. To this day, he and a handful of others contend the fire was arson.

Summer heat and humidity settle into the region through at least Thursday. The National Weather Service is calling for a high near 90 today, and temperatures should climb into the mid-90s for Monday’s Memorial Day celebrations, said Myron Padgett, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio. “It’s above normal, but we’re not quite setting records,” Padgett said.

Last week, Kentucky Utilities asked the state Public Service Commission for a rate hike that will increase customers’ bills by 12.2 percent over the next four years. KU says it needs the additional revenue to pay for the $2.5-billion in improvements to its coal-fired generating plants like the E.W. Brown facility near Burgin — improvements mandated by the EPA. KU has already taken steps to significantly reduce the amount of sulphur dioxide coming from the massive smokestacks at Brown. And the electric company turned to a neighbor six miles down Burgin Road, Mercer Stone, to help solve its emissions troubles with limestone taken from the ground at Mercer Stone’s facility.