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This week's Very Important Puzzler sits down with host Ophira Eisenberg to talk about her novel The GQ Candidate, as well as how she got her start as a political pundit. Plus, Goff teams up with a member of our listening audience for a quiz about her favorite TV show, Law & Order.

The cardinals who will choose the next pope want to be sure there's "absolutely no scandal connected to him," says NPR's Cokie Roberts. So, they will be digging into the potential popes' backgrounds. During that vetting, some leaks may occur.

The lead-up to the execution of Naw Kham and three accomplices accused of murdering 13 Chinese sailors in 2011 is carried live on national television.

The Supreme Court heard arguments this week on the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. It's been called the most effective civil rights law in U.S. history, but plaintiffs say it's time to throw out some key provisions. Host Michel Martin speaks with law professor Spencer Overton and the Heritage Foundation's Hans Von Spakovsky.

In 1958, James Van Allen described two belts of radiation that surround Earth. Daniel Baker says that when a satellite was launched to study the belts in 2012, it saw a third belt form, which lasted for about a month before being blasted away by an interplanetary shock wave.

MC Frontalot, aka Damian Hess, makes a living rapping about data encryption, rare diseases, video games and the nerd life. He describes Nerdcore, his name for the genre, as "the inversion of the shame of geekery... into pride." Frontalot joins Ira Flatow and Flora Lichtman to chat about the intersection of nerdiness and hip-hop and shares some of his songs.

Biotech pioneer Robert Langer has over 800 patents to his name and has launched two dozen companies, which develop everything from tumor-fighting nanoparticles to anti-frizz hair products. Yet Langer says his proudest accomplishment is teaching some 500 students and post-docs, now professors and start-up leaders themselves.

Friday's deadline for President Obama to issue a sequestration order is neither the beginning nor the end of this year's budget battles in Washington. Here are five key moments over the next seven months, and what's at stake in each.

Robert Lustig, a physician and anti-sugar crusader, found in a new study that countries where people have easy access to sugar are more likely to see a rise in diabetes. But skeptics say that sugar's not the only culprit.