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The experimental Swiss mime troupe took Broadway by storm in the 1970s. Now the masked performers are bringing their hard-to-describe characters back to the U.S. for a five-month national tour celebrating the troupe's 40th anniversary.

Mourners left flowers and plants after the 2011 Tucson shooting rampage that killed six people and wounded 13. Instead of sending the shrines to a landfill after they were taken down, volunteers sorted through everything, replanted what they could and composted the rest.

Robert Ingersoll was one of the most famous people in late 19th century America, but he's almost forgotten today. His crime? Biographer Susan Jacoby says Ingersoll argued against religion in public life and said "There is nothing like reading the Bible literally to make you question it."

After more than 20 years, The Wheel of Time series is ending with the release of the 14th volume, A Memory of Light. NPR's Petra Mayer has read all of the books — plus the prequel — and she says that while the writing is workmanlike, the vast world that author Robert Jordan created will suck you in.

At a new school for midwives, students learn old arts, like massaging bellies, while also studying gynecology, obstetrics and nursing. Officials hope a new generation of professional midwives will help reduce the pressures on Mexican hospitals overwhelmed by births that, in the past, would have taken place at home.

What attracts people to fantasy? Is it the orcs and the elves, or the rich worlds they inhabit? Author Saladin Ahmed says world-building — the craft of building a believable fictional world — provides "an almost physical sense of getting lost somewhere that isn't home, but which comes to be home."

Syrian President Bashar Assad appeared before his people Sunday and delivered his first public address since early June. He remained defiant in the face of the uprising that has raged for two years, describing the rebels as al-Qaida terrorists. Host Rachel Martin speaks with NPR's Kelly McEvers.

Syrian President Bashar Assad gave a defiant speech Sunday, giving little hope for an ease in the violence that has left more than 60,000 dead. Host Rachel Martin talks with Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for analysis.

Some of the highest-grossing films in 2012 had errors in continuity. The website MovieMistakes.com has a list of some of the year's biggest mishaps. Host Rachel Martin speaks with John Sandys, who runs the site.

David Esterly's life was changed in the 1970s when he came across wood carvings done by Grinling Gibbons more than 300 years earlier. Esterly became a wood carver, and even re-created one of Gibbons' pieces that was destroyed in a fire.