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The political world is gearing up for President Obama's State of the Union on Tuesday night, an address in which the president gets to outline his priorities for the coming year. With tens of millions of people watching on TV and — the administration hopes — on their cell phones and tablets, the speech offers the chance to reframe the terms of many of the difficult issues that have so far dogged the president's second term.

At the Syrian peace talks, government and opposition representatives held their first face-to-face discussion about a political transition — but by the end of the day, UN mediator Lakhdar Brahimi had no progress to report. He urged both sides to focus on the desperate humanitarian situation facing Syrians in several besieged cities.

Rebecca Mead was 17 the first time she read Eliot's Middlemarch, and the book has remained a favorite ever since. But critic Meg Wolitzer says you don't have to read (or re-read) Middlemarch to love Mead's new book, My Life in Middlemarch, which is a mash-up of literary criticism, memoir and biography of Eliot.

While the agreement gives tech companies more options in publishing data about government requests for information, it also includes several limitations. It's part of President Obama's plan to change how U.S. intelligence agencies handle personal data.

The X Games have changed the lineup and atmosphere of the Winter Olympics with the introduction of snowboarding, half-pipe and now slopestyle. But when a youth-lifestyle, punk-rock sport makes it to the Olympics, some things inevitably change.

After comparing the outrage over the richest one percent to Kristallnacht, venture capitalist Tom Perkins quasi-apologized Monday night. "The use of the word ... was a terrible misjudgment," he said, before noting "I don't regret the message."

Three years after a $200 million program was started, 50 percent of recruits are illiterate. Teaching all 352,000 recruits to read and write at a first-grade level, said some officials, may be "unrealistic."

When President Obama gives his State of the Union Address, he's likely to hit on familiar themes: expanding opportunity for all Americans, pushing for immigration overhaul and investment in infrastructure. And he's expected to say that if Congress doesn't act, he'll move forward with his own initiatives through executive action. This comes as Congress gave him very little of what he asked for last year.

President Obama is asking a group of CEOs to pledge not to discriminate against the long-term unemployed. But new research suggests that these job seekers may face an even greater challenge — many of them are not even being considered by employers. Our Planet Money team looks into the research and challenges facing these job seekers.

Steve Inskeep talks to Harvard economist Nathan Hendren, a co-author of the study, which shows social mobility in the United States is not decreasing. David Wessel, of the Brookings Institution and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, says while mobility isn't getting any worse, there still is a big gap between rich and poor.