NPR News

This month, more than a dozen homeless veterans will finally have a place to call their own, thanks to the American Legion.

The organization's post in a small Connecticut town has been working for a decade on a unique project to create not transitional but permanent supportive housing in their rural community.

For 55-year-old Army veteran Jeff MacDonald, the new facility in Jewett City, Conn., was like "winning the lottery."

On this week's All Songs Considered, listen to what happens when Robin takes a chance on an album based solely on its cover art, and when Bob brings on a surprise guest who makes our ears bleed.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's planned speech Wednesday at the NAACP convention in Houston comes at a precarious time for the nation's African-American community.

-- The unemployment rate among blacks is north of 14 percent — more than 5 points higher than the national average.

-- Opponents of GOP-led efforts to require voters in about a dozen states to show identification say the voter ID laws could disproportionately disenfranchise legal black and Latino voters.

This Thursday, Penn State University will release an independent report on the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the institution and its football program.

After allegations of child abuse surfaced against Jerry Sandusky, the university appointed Judge Louis Freeh to look into how the university handled the case. The university and its leaders including former legendary football coach Joe Paterno have been criticized for what has been characterized as slow action.

President Obama campaigned in Iowa on Tuesday, promoting his plan to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for those who make under $250,000 a year — but not for more wealthy Americans.

Republican Mitt Romney was in another swing state, Colorado, hitting a new Republican charge that some of Obama's policies have helped create jobs overseas at the expense of the domestic job market.

If you don't know Taken by Trees, the solo project of Swedish singer Victoria Bergsman, then perhaps you're new to All Songs Considered. In 2009, Taken by Trees' made my year end top 10 list and then seemed to vanish. The album, East of Eden, was made in Pakistan but embodied American popular music in the way only a Scandinavian could do (as in so many cases, that meant "better").

According to several news report, Google and the Federal Trade Commission are close to reaching an agreement over charges of a privacy breach.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the tentative deal would have Google pay $22.5 million over charges that it bypassed the privacy settings of users of Apple's Safari web browser.

The Journal reports:

Back in the day, Madrid's Palace Hotel was Ernest Hemingway's old haunt, or at least the bar was. Now, rooms at the posh hotel just down from the famed Prado Museum go for up to $6,000 a night. And gathering in its lobby these days? An altogether different type of foreigner: the kind in expensive suits.

"Probably they are institutional investors, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds," says Federico Steinberg, an economist at Madrid's Elcano Institute.

There's a lot of cash around the world, he says, and a lot of people looking for bargains.