NPR News

The clock is ticking on holiday shopping, but it's not too late to buy this year's top gadgets. Host Michel Martin gets the dish from AOL's LaToya Drake. Some of the items on her list include an interactive dancing toy robot for kids, and for adults, a device that measures the amount of deep sleep a person gets each night.

Nigerian-Ghanaian author Taiye Selasi splashed onto the literary scene with her story, 'The Sex Lives of African Girls.' As part of Tell Me More's occasional series, In Your Ear, Selasi talks about the music that inspires her, including Ladytron single, 'White Elephant,' and a cover of REM's, 'Losing My Religion' by Nina Persson.

Gulnaz, the young Afghan woman whose story has spread around the world because she was imprisoned after being raped by a relative, is now free, CNN and the BBC are reporting.

Medicaid sure is popular. And that's a big problem for state budgets.

These days the health program for the poor is claiming a bigger slice of states' spending than even K-12 education, says a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers.

All told, Medicaid is expected to grab 23.6 percent of states' spending in fiscal 2011, up from 22.3 percent the year before.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a document yesterday that got no attention on the nightly news, or almost anywhere, really. Its title, I'm sure you'll agree, is a snooze: National Nutrient Management Standard.

Yet this document represents the agency's best attempt to solve one of the country's — and the world's — really huge environmental problems: The nitrogen and phosphorus that pollute waterways.