Talk of the Nation

Over half of U.S. states will have to close a combined budget gap of 55 billion dollars, according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in the 2013 fiscal year. To avoid raising taxes, most states are implementing continued cuts to deal with budget shortfalls.

A year after South Sudan declared its independence, intractable problems remain: tribal conflict, oil disputes, corruption, hunger and continued fighting. New Yorker staff writer Jon Lee Anderson traveled to the remote Nuba Mountains, in Sudan, where the conflict between north and south rages on.

High-tech gadgets, like smartphones, keep us connected at all hours and are making it more difficult to get a good night's sleep. But several new smartphone apps claim to help users sleep better. New York Times health and fitness reporter Anahad O'Connor explains the science behind apps.

Transcript

JENNIFER LUDDEN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Jennifer Ludden in Washington. In a year where a tight presidential race could be determined by a few swing states, the issue of who is allowed to vote could turn the election, which is why recent moves in Florida and Iowa are getting so much attention.

Bucking a larger trend, these two states are making it harder for former felons to vote. This comes as a number of other states in recent years have made the process easier.

In an op-ed piece for the Daily Beast, sports columnist Buzz Bissinger writes that an "insidious culture of sports in America" helped cover up the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State. He argues that the NCAA should ban the university's football program for five years.

As you sweat during hot-weather exercise, the body's temperature inches up, and heatstroke can result. Douglas Casa, of the Korey Stringer Institute, explains the best way to stay safely hydrated during summer activity--and why too much water can be a bad thing too.

Reporting in Science, two teams of scientists say they were unable to replicate the results of a 2010 study claiming to have found 'alien life' on Earth--a bacterium that could build its DNA using arsenic. Science journalist Carl Zimmer talks about how the controversy played out online, and how science corrects itself.

Reporting in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers write that extreme heat waves, such as the one last year in Texas, are 20 times more likely today than they were in the 1960s. NOAA climatologist Tom Peterson discusses what future climate change may bring.