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Every year, on the day after Thanksgiving, almost 100 volunteer decorators show up at the White House. They spend the next five days stringing garlands and hanging ornaments, making the White House sparkle for the holidays. NPR has a related tradition, and it's about to end.

When writers finish a book, they may think they've had the last word — but sometimes another writer will decide there's more to the story, or more to a background character. NPR's Lynn Neary explores the fine old literary tradition of writing new stories based on existing books.

It was the spring of 1999 in Moscow, and two of the 20th century's great revolutionary leaders, South Africa's Nelson Mandela and Russia's Boris Yeltsin, were having their first face-to-face talks as presidents of their nations. Yeltsin was struggling, but with a few simple gestures, Mandela changed the narrative.

Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old veteran of the Korean War who was arrested by authorities in Pyongyang after a tour of the North, reportedly issued an apology for his "hostile acts."

Newman was deported by North Korea on Friday, days after he appeared on state TV reading an apology for alleged war crimes.

In an in-depth talk at the Saban Forum, President Obama explained his calculations when it came to negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program.

Amid the flurry of retrospectives prompted by Nelson Mandela's death, writer Kevin Roose reminds readers not to forget the social context within which Mandela struggled. Roose suggests reading the novel, Cry the Beloved Country, to understand the systematic racial oppression of South Africa under apartheid.

A writer who has studied Nelson Mandela's life as a young man says the leader known for his grace and forgiveness, and for helping South Africa end apartheid while avoiding civil war, was once seen in a much different light. At one point, he even trained in guerrilla warfare.

South Africa's official period of mourning for former President Nelson Mandela will culminate in his funeral a week from Sunday. Mandela's death left South Africans with "a sense of profound and enduring loss," says the nation"s president, Jacob Zuma. His compatriots, as well as foreign visitors, are flocking in homage to the Mandela homes in Soweto and Johannesburg.

The high-tech system can essentially override human error and slow a train that is going too fast. Congress mandated that all trains have it by 2015, but only a few passenger and freight railroads will be ready by then. And after a deadly train crash in New York, few in Congress may be willing to vote for a delay.