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First Minister Alex Salmond called next year's planned referendum a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to follow a different path." In other news, migrants will drive Australia's population growth over the next 50 years; and Japan's Lower House approves a controversial state secrets bill.

For 25 seasons, The Simpsons writers have been smuggling math onto Americans' TV screens. Author Simon Singh helps Ira decode the show's numberplay, while former Simpsons writer David X. Cohen remembers how he helped Homer solve Fermat's Last Theorem (sort of).

The Mississippi senator, who turns 76 Saturday, ended speculation that he would retire and instead set up the prospect of another bruising GOP primary in 2014.

Thursday night's live production of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic suffered from limited acting in places, but it offered some Broadway veterans a rare opportunity to shine for larger crowds.

Radiant Orchid is the new "in" color for 2014, according to the institute, which gave us Emerald this year.

The founder of Pakistan's classic car club hops in his 1954 Austin-Healey and drives from one end of the troubled country to the other with his wife and friends. Why? Mostly because it's fun, but also as a statement of defiance to those causing havoc in Pakistan.

Robert Siegel talks to writer Walter Isaacson about the legacy of Nelson Mandela and what makes a "great man" (with a nod to Thomas Carlyle's "great man theory" of the 19th century). Isaacson has written biographies of other great historical figures, including Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. He says history is made by individuals and Mandela was a person who changed the course of history.

The great anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela died late Friday night in Johannesburg. South Africans woke up to the news this morning and crowds gathered outside the former Mandela family home in Soweto township. This is the home where he lived before he was arrested, before he was imprisoned for those long years, before he became an icon. The mood among the hundreds of people outside the house and on the surrounding blocks was anything but somber.

All this week, All Things Considered and Morning Edition has aired stories about the global journey a T-shirt makes from seed to finished product. Over the months NPR's Planet Money team spent reporting the series, they tackled questions about trade, work and clothes play in the global economy.

Egyptians are preparing to vote on a new constitution, again. When the last constitution was approved, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was in power. He was ousted in July. The latest constitution was drafted by the military-backed government that ousted Morsi. Nathan Brown, who studies constitutionalism and rule of law in the Arab world, talks to Robert Siegel about what's at stake in the process, and the criticism the draft constitution has received. Brown is a professor at George Washington University and a scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.