NPR News

Ahead of the 2012 presidential election, key states have adopted voter ID laws and other measures that could affect voter turnout. It's created a national controversy about who will be most affected.

According to the New York Times, 33 states now have laws requiring identification for voting, and five require specific kinds of photo IDs to vote.

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:

I guess it's not that big of a surprise, but according to last week's poll, 67 percent of you haven't heard Big Star's #1 Record. One of the nice side benefits of doing this series is that it gives people a chance to discover great albums they've never heard before, so if you're part of the 67 percent that hasn't heard Big Star, take some time to listen. You'll love it.

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 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.