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Until now, a 250-year-old encoded text titled the Copiale Cipher baffled cryptographers and historians with bizarre symbols and seemingly random letters. Computer scientist Kevin Knight and two Swedish researchers have broken the code to the 105-page manuscript, and NPR's Daniel Hajek reports on what the Cipher revealed.

Iran's nuclear ambitions have become a topic of debate in the presidential race. Most recently, Joe Biden and Paul Ryan argued in their debate last week how long it would be before Iran possessed the capability to make an actual weapon.

The Homestead Act of 1862 granted free farms to almost any settler who struck out west. A German peasant named Frederick Wohler received the deed to 80 acres of farmland in north-central Kansas 138 years ago this weekend. And today, the Wohlers are still there.

It was billed as the "Commander in Chief" debate, and while Obama earns higher marks for his role as commander in chief than he does overall, Republican hopefuls found plenty to criticize in Saturday night's debate in South Carolina, beginning with Iran.

In the 1930s, working as a Pullman porter was one of the few good jobs available to African-American men, even though the pay was low and racism was a daily fact of work life. Cheryl West's new play tells the story of three generations of Pullman porters. Marcie Sillman, of member station KUOW, talked to the playwright and a former porter about the job and how West presents it on stage.

Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin talks with Roben Farzad, contributing editor to Bloomberg Businessweek, about what the recent dip in the unemployment rate and gains in the stock market mean for the economic recovery in the U.S.

In the hotly contested battleground state of North Carolina, Election Day arrives early. Polls open for early voting starting this Thursday in a state that President Obama won by just four-tenths of a percentage point back in 2008. Until then, the state hadn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1976. Weekend Edition host Rachel Martin talks with John Frank, a political writer for the Raleigh-based News & Observer.

Critic Will Hermes says the singer's new record is an instant classic that sounds fresh even as it mines the golden era of Jamaican R&B.

The Greek economic crisis has barely grazed the tiny island of Folegandros. It lives off boutique tourism and island weddings that keep its small hotels, windmill houses and tavernas full. Joanna Kakissis sends a postcard of a very multinational wedding on the island.

For the past 25 years, Chip Kidd has made a name for himself as a top book designer. His designs have helped transform books into visual icons. But in the brave new world of e-books, where covers are often shrunk to thumbnail sketches on a screen, will beautifully designed covers become a dying art?