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Even infants too young to discern the meaning of words seem better able to learn while listening to the sound of human speech than while listening to nonsense — speech run backward. Little surprise there, perhaps, but a study shows that recordings of lemur calls spark learning, too.

At 64, the long-distance swimmer becomes the first person to cross the Florida Straits without the aid of a protective shark cage. She swam for more than two days and traveled more than 100 miles.

President Enrique Pena Nieto gave an upbeat assessment of his nine-month-old administration on Monday in his first State of the Union address. Despite his positive review of Mexico's condition, the new president is dealing with chaotic teacher protests in the capital, intractable levels of violence and a less favorable economic outlook than predicted.

The Golden 1920s couple didn't fare as well in the 1930s, and the North Carolina mountain town was host to a particularly sad time. NPR's Susan Stamberg discovered a little-known story of the Jazz Age darlings and their devastating connections to Asheville.

In eastern Arizona, there's a tiny, 1900 watt radio station that's marking its first year on the air. KYAY is licensed to and owned by the San Carlos Apache Tribe. For many of the isolated reservation's 13,000 or so residents, it's the outlet for community information, news and a lot of entertainment.

About one-quarter of all Syrians have been forced to flee their homes, many to neighboring nations. New data on the number of refugees come as Congress begins debating the president's request for authorization to take military action in response to the Assad regime's alleged use of chemical weapons.

After her pet chicken ate a diamond earring, a woman in England decided to wait until the bird died to get her jewelry back. The earring could have been removed surgically but she was afraid the chicken wouldn't survive.

Also: The Hugo Awards; a push to ban a Toni Morrison book from Alabama school reading lists, the best book coming out this week.

Microsoft is spending $7.2 billion for Nokia's mobile phones business. The thinking, analysts say, is that to succeed in other areas — tablets and PCs — Microsoft needs to build its Windows Phone business.