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Xavier University of Louisiana has a number of distinctions. It is the country's only historically black, Catholic University. Plus, it's one of the leading universities when it comes to sending African-American students on to medical school. And at 45 years, no other university's president has served longer than Xavier's Norman Francis.

The Republican Kentucky senator and possible 2016 presidential candidate tells a Hispanic business group that his message to the nation's illegal immigrants is: "If you wish to live and work in America, then we will find a place for you."

Aaron Jackson bought the house specifically to counter what he said is the church's message of hate. "Instead of millions of children around the world getting this hate message, they're going to see this message of compassion and love," Jackson said.

Forging peace between these two protagonists was long seen as the holy grail of American diplomacy. But as President Obama visits, expectations are low and the conflict feels much less urgent than it used to.

Cyprus lawmakers rejected a $13 billion bailout package that included controversial taxes on bank deposits. The proposed tax would have helped to pay for the bailout of crumbling banks. NPR's Marilyn Geewax explains how the events in Cyprus could affect the global economy and what may happen next.

Like Americans, the Swiss have an entrenched gun culture — it's not uncommon to see regular citizens out in the public with a gun slung across their back — and most are vehemently opposed to gun control. Yet Switzerland has a far lower rate of gun violence than in the U.S.

As the Republican National Committee offers criticism and advice for the party after its performance in 2012, a political science professor has come up with a list of sometimes similar GOP outreach efforts of old.

Plans by the Israeli government to build in E1 have been decried by Palestinian officials who claim that building a new settlement between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim would, "effectively cut the West Bank in two." Israeli officials have accused the Palestinians of exaggerating E1's importance, and pro-Israel groups have argued that alternative roads will still run through the area, connecting the northern and southern halves of the West Bank. A trip between Bethlehem and Ramallah that 10 years ago would take 15-20 minutes, will take upwards of 2.5 hours on the new roads.

In Cyprus, the parliament is wrestling with a European Union-imposed plan that would seize at least 10 percent of the bank savings of wealthy people and possibly 7 percent from everyone else, to help defray the cost of bailing out Cypriot banks. On Tuesday, lawmakers voted against a modified version of the plan.

Gun-oriented language is so pervasive in American English that even Vice President Joe Biden, in a recent press conference about curbing gun violence, discussed "shooting" for a given deadline and the lack of a "silver bullet." Melissa Block speaks with Katherine Connor Martin, head of U.S. dictionaries for Oxford University Press, about how American English came to be peppered with so many of the terms.