Ken Smith is the author of Junk English 2, a book about the often meaningless words and phrases Americans love to use. He sees the language "spiraling downward." Hear Smith and NPR's Jennifer Ludden.
Jennifer Ludden helps edit energy and environment stories for NPR's National Desk, working with NPR staffers and a team of public radio reporters across the country. They track the shift to clean energy, state and federal policy moves, and how people and communities are coping with the mounting impacts of climate change.
Social Security's finances have improved slightly in the last year. But the popular retirement program still faces big challenges including the threat of automatic benefit cuts in less than a decade.
Monday is the Met Gala, known as fashion's grandest event, where celebrities from various realms come together at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate fashion and each other.