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Twenty years ago, Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court by the narrowest margin in 100 years. He's the most conservative justice since the 1930s, and, in his passion for his own version of "original intent," he's willing to reverse whole lines of previous rulings. He's an enigmatic figure — silent at oral arguments, beloved by his law clerks and court employees. Most analysts say that his extreme views limit his influence on the court, except to set markers for where a future court could go. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.

The opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in jail and analysts say it signals that the Ukraine is headed toward a Russian-style autocratic rule.

The largest study yet to test whether daily vitamin E supplements could reduce the risk of prostate cancer finds they may have the opposite effect, raising the chances of illness by 17 percent.

Guy Raz talks with NPR sports correspondent Mike Pesca about the numbers behind the NBA's labor troubles.

Slovakia, the second poorest of the 17 nations that use the euro, has complicated plans to help Greece and other debt-ravaged countries. The Slovakian parliament was due to be the last to approve the expansion of the eurozone bailout fund. But internal divisions in the ruling coalition caused the government to collapse instead.

Robert Siegel and Guy Raz read emails from listeners about Alex Chadwick's story on Monday's program. Chadwick, a former NPR colleague, took a trip down the rapids of the Green and Colorado rivers with climate activist Tim DeChristopher. Chadwick was still grieving his late wife while DeChristopher was facing a prison sentence for disrupting an auction of government oil and gas leases. Listeners were moved by Chadwick's story, though some took issue with DeChristopher's attitude about his crime.

It was the first big test for Obama's plan. The president vowed, earlier, to move the $447 billion bill through the chambers piecemeal if the Senate failed to pass it today.

The foiled plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.S. is not likely to lead to military reprisals, analysts say. But it will increase tension within a set of tangled relationships.

Mumtaz Qadri was sentenced to death for the killing of a governor, but supporters rallied behind him saying he killed in defense of Pakistan's tough blasphemy laws.

In America, football is really big — and it's getting bigger. Football is now gigantic, monstrous, humongous. And it has done more than surpass baseball. It now simply looms alone above the American sportscape.