NPR News

The most valuable player of this year's All Star Game has been suspended for 50 games, Major League Baseball announced today.

Melky Cabrera, MLB tweeted, tested positive for testosterone and the suspension knocks him out for the rest of the season.

An experimental aircraft that designers hoped would hit 3,600 mph in a test flight over the Pacific on Tuesday "suffered a control failure" and failed in its attempt to go hypersonic, The Associated Press writes.

Its report follows earlier word from Wired magazine's Danger Room blog that it had been told by an "insider familiar with the test" that:

Transcript

JOHN DONVAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm John Donvan.

It seemed normal enough when President Obama chatted with a coffee shop patron about beer in Iowa Tuesday. The president has shown he's a fan of beer — and it's the most politically expedient, "everyman" beverage a candidate can drink. But then the president told a man at Knoxville, Iowa's Coffee Connection cafe that he travels with his own home-brew — and gave him a bottle to prove it.

The Republican ticket is complete now that Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate. NPR's Ken Rudin and Sergio Bustos, of The Miami Herald, discuss what the Ryan pick means for the presidential race.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the 2012 presidential and congressional elections will be the most expensive on record, at an estimated cost of nearly $6 billion. Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner says politicians should spend even more.

The world of competitive Scrabble was jolted yesterday: One of the games' most promising players admitted he was hiding blank letter tiles.

As Mark wrote last year, a similar accusation of cheating was made at the World Scrabble Championships in 2011. But officials refused to strip search the man as an opponent demanded, because there wasn't sufficient evidence.