Weekend Edition from NPR

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

In Egypt, Bassem Youssef has built a following by making jokes about his own government.

BASSEM YOUSSEF: (Foreign language spoken)

(LAUGHTER)

MARTIN: That's a bit of sound from Youssef's satirical TV show, which often gets compared to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." His sharp critiques of the president and the ruling political party in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood, have made him famous. But his show has also stirred up controversy.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

In China, authorities are stepping up efforts to contain the spread of a new strain of bird flu, which has killed six people across that country. It is the first time this particular virus, called H7N9, has been detected in humans. For more, Dr. Thomas Frieden joins us. He is the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He joins us on the line from his office in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome to the program.

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Good morning.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

If you're open to possibilities and you're brave enough to take risks, good things can happen. Of course, it also helps if you're as talented as 23-year-old Lianne La Havas. One critic called the singer-songwriter the golden girl of British music. Another wondered whether she could be the next Adele. In this encore presentation, NPR's Elizabeth Blair has a profile.

On-air challenge: Every answer is a well-known commercial name that spells a regular word or name backward. Identify the brands. For example, given "laundry detergent" and "work in a magazine office," the answer would be "tide" and "edit."

Last week's challenge: Name something in four letters that you use every day. Add the letters O, H and M, and rearrange all seven letters. You will name something else you probably use every day. This seven-letter thing is usually found near the four-letter thing. What are they?

With a single, devastating shot, Ali Farokhmanesh became the face of the NCAA basketball tournament in 2010.

He nailed the 3-pointer that propelled the ninth-seeded Northern Iowa Panthers to a major upset victory over the tournament favorite, Kansas Jayhawks. It also put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

A women's Final Four without Baylor, Stanford or Tennessee? That's happened only one other time in the last dozen years. We've become so used to it being a power party, that it's downright disorienting.

Or maybe that's just vertigo from trying to track the movements of the Final Four's breakout star, Louisville guard Shoni Schimmel. She's a big reason why two of those teams — Tennessee and Baylor — aren't in New Orleans for a chance at the title.

The U.S. Senate was scheduled to begin voting on gun control measures this week when Congress returns from recess, but Senate staffers say a bipartisan agreement has yet to be reached on universal background checks. That snarl may end up delaying a vote on gun legislation for another week, as lobbyists on both sides of the debate use the extra time to keep the pressure on.

It's delicious, it's nutritious and it's basically rotten. Fermentation is a hot culinary trend, and, as Weekend Edition food commentator Bonny Wolf explains, the preservation process gives food a flavor unique to time and place.

People you know may intentionally be growing bacteria in their homes — on food, outside the refrigerator. And they are doing it to make food safe, and nutritious.

They are doing what cooks have always done: fermenting food.

A federal judge ordered Friday what women's groups have failed to accomplish politically for a dozen years. He ruled that Plan B, the most commonly used morning-after birth control pill, be sold without a prescription or other restrictions to women of all ages.