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When Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney selected Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his running mate, Catholics passed a milestone. For the first time in history, both vice presidential candidates, Ryan and Vice President Biden, are Catholic.

But if Biden and Ryan share the same faith, they couldn't be further apart in their cultural and political worldviews. On issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage, taxes and Medicaid, they are miles apart.

How can that be?

Reflecting 'The Old And The New'

In Tampa, Fla., a week ahead of their national convention, Republicans are drawing up their party platform. There are muted disagreements over a few issues, such as immigration and same-sex marriage. But at least within the platform committee, one of the least controversial issues discussed this week is abortion.

With little discussion, the committee on Tuesday adopted the same anti-abortion language it included in GOP platforms in 2004 and 2008. It seeks passage of a constitutional amendment that would extend legal rights to the unborn, essentially banning abortion.

Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, has died. He was 57 years old. Meles was reportedly being treated at a hospital in Belgium. He came to power after leading rebels and overthrowing the country's dictator in 1991. He was a key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism, but was also increasingly authoritarian.

All the dry weather means there's less water flowing through the once mighty river into the Gulf of Mexico, and low outflow means saltwater from the Gulf is creeping in.

Some Louisiana cities have already begun purchasing drinking water. Now New Orleans is at risk.

Audie Cornish talks with Los Angeles Times staff writer Steven Zeitchik about his recent article on the NC-17 movie rating. Films rated NC-17 face stigma in the marketplace — some theaters won't show them and some newspapers won't carry ads for them. But, as Zeitchik writes, that's not what the Motion Picture Association of America intended when it created the rating over 20 years ago.

Even the tiniest change — from daylight saving time to standard time — can throw your body off.

Imagine jumping into the time zone of an entirely different planet. That's what the family of David Oh, a NASA engineer, has been doing for weeks.

For one day the whir of wheels on a wooden track is suspended as the Los Angeles Derby Dolls open their warehouse venue for the summertime Free Community Health & Job Fair, serving the surrounding Historical Filipinotown community.

The event provides free mammograms, glucose testing, self-defense classes and more courtesy of St. Vincent's Hospital — as well as job recruitment from police and fire departments.

India's parliament was adjourned briefly today as the opposition called for the resignation of the prime minister, saying he was complicit in what has become known as "coal-gate."

The uproar stems from an official audit issued last week accusing the government of selling coal mining rights for too low a price.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that health insurance companies can be a pain for patients. What may be a surprise is that hospitals often complain, too. And the reasons aren't so different from those of consumers: Denied claims. Low reimbursement. Late reimbursement. Thickets of red tape.

The Rocket is going to be pitching again Saturday night.

Despite tough economic times, Nike is about to go where it has never gone before: Its Lebron X sneakers are expected to retail for $315. That's the first time a pair of its kicks breaks the $300 barrier.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the price hike comes after the company saw some steep drops to its gross margins. But the company may be taking its customers too far. The Journal reports:

Cities may be the defining element of human civilization.

The path from hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic era 25,000 years ago to the high-tech, high-wonder jumble we inhabit today runs straight through cities. In traveling that path, our construction of cities has always been a dance with physics. In some cases, that physics was explicitly understood; in others, its manifestation was only recognized in hindsight.

As our cities have become more complex the physics embodying their behavior and organization has also become more nuanced, subtle and profound.

New reports from the presidential campaigns show that Republican Mitt Romney last month widened his cash advantage over President Obama. But the numbers reported to the Federal Election Commission paint a more complex picture of the race and the vast amounts of money fueling the campaign.

The Obama campaign committee, Obama for America, reported raising about $39 million, almost $11 million more than was raised in July by the Romney campaign committee, Romney For President.

U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin apologized for his remarks about rape and pregnancy, but calls have intensified for him to withdraw. Plus, a new e-book claims the Obama campaign is in a constant state of conflict. Guest host Viviana Hurtado speaks with Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America and Joy-Ann Reid of TheGrio.com.

Ethiopians today are facing an uncertain future after the death of their leader, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. He was last seen in public in June, and he reportedly died in a Belgian hospital. Guest host Viviana Hurtado discusses the implications of Meles Zenawi's death for the region with NPR Africa correspondent Ofeibea Quist-Arcton.

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VIVIANA HURTADO, HOST:

I'm Viviana Hurtado and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Michel Martin is away. You know it had to happen. Summer break is over in some parts of the country, or almost over. Children are heading back to school.

It's tempting to make a "fight club" reference (and some news outlets have), but the outrageous nature of the allegations seems to call for a more straight-forward approach:

From the window of my room at the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Pittsburgh, I can see a sliver of the hotel fitness center. This morning I looked down there and saw a guy with an earpiece. Secret Service.

So I wasn't entirely surprised to walk into the tiny exercise room a little after 7 a.m. and find the Republican vice presidential candidate working out. There was a row of about half a dozen elliptical machines and treadmills, one workout bench, a small rack of dumbbells, an inflatable exercise ball, and a folding workout mat.

America's oldest citizens are generally getting healthier, living longer and doing better financially. But there's lots of room for improvement.

That's the take-home from an exhaustive picture of Americans over 65 put together by the federal government and released last week during the summer doldrums.

Rosie O'Donnell has chosen an unusual way to tell her fans that she suffered a heart attack last week:

In verse.

On her blog.

And she's using the experience to urge other women to "listen to the voice inside" and call 911 if they suffer the symptoms she did — which she tried to ignore for a day.

An aircraft that had been set to fly Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey out of Afghanistan today was damaged by shrapnel from rockets fired at the Bagram air field north of Kabul from outside its fences.

Two maintenance workers on the ground were slightly wounded, NPR's Tom Bowman reports. Dempsey was not near the aircraft at the time. He later left Afghanistan on another plane.

Endurance swimmer Diana Nyad has ended her third recent attempt to swim the 100 miles or so from Cuba to Key West, Florida, her official Twitter page says.

That word followed reports from ABC News' Good Morning America and CNN.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

As a volunteer at the Phoenix House Academy of Dublin, 21-year-old Sofia Capria helps teenagers battle drug and alcohol addiction — just as she did herself three years ago.

"Right away, I was hooked," Sofia says of her own drug use, which began at age 11. But for her, the road to recovery wasn't easy.

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DAVID GREENE, HOST: