Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, was arrested this weekend for allegedly sexually assaulting a maid in his hotel room. He has denied the allegations. For more on the criminal case, see this AP story.

Strauss-Kahn's arrest leaves a vacuum at the top of the IMF at a key moment for the global economy. I'll get to that in a minute, but it's worth pausing here to answer a more basic question: What is the IMF, anyway?

Boxer Bernard Hopkin recently called football player Donovan McNabb a 'house slave' – an insult that has gone viral. Host Michel Martin takes aim at the idea that you have to be a thug to be cool. She says African Americans are not the only ones that should fight that message, but it's the responsibility of white Americans, the media, and Hollywood to stop perpetuating the myth that blackness must equal dysfunction.

Last September, physicist Stephen Hawking was in the news for making the case that no God was needed to create the universe.

Now, he's told The Guardian that:

Two years ago, New York Times reporter Walt Bogdanich received a tip from a source at a major New York City hospital. The source said that premature babies at the hospital were receiving much higher doses of radiation during procedures than what was typically recommended. Some premature infants were receiving full body scans, with much higher doses of radiation, when a chest X-ray — with a much lower dose of radiation — would have sufficed.

On Friday, Alex Blumberg, one of our buddies over at Planet Money, reported on the story of singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton. Coulton's a former computer programmer who has managed to translate a love of office-based geek humor and an affinity for melodic folk pop into an Internet success story.

Louisiana deputies were warning residents Monday to head for higher ground to avoid water gushing from the Mississippi River after a floodgate was opened this weekend for the first time in nearly four decades.

The massive Morganza Spillway is reducing stress on levees protecting Baton Rouge and New Orleans, but it is diverting the water to other rivers, bayous and wetlands.

Fifty years ago, hundreds boarded buses in the South to challenge desegregation laws. They were met with violence and harassment. A group of forty students retraced the route of the historic freedom rides, and they end their journey today. Host Michel Martin discusses the trek with two of these students: Zilong Wang of Hampshire College and Lu-Anne Haukaas Lopez of the Uiversity of Alaska.

A court ruled Friday that the City of Chicago must hire 111 African American firefighters and pay damages to thousands who were denied jobs. The legal battle started after applicants took a 1995 employment exam to become firefighters. The plaintiffs claim the test did not measure the ability to be a firefighter and made it more likely that whites would be hired. Host Michel Martin discusses the case with Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell.

The International Criminal Court's prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for crimes against humanity. And leaders from the Libyan opposition gathered in Washington to garner American support. Former Libyan Ambassador Ali Aujali hosted rebel leaders during their visit. He speaks with host Michel Martin about the rebels' expectations from the U.S., their plans to create a post-Gadhafi government, and the latest developments with the conflict in Libya.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” on Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the debt limit debate presents “an opportunity” to take on federal spending.