All Things Considered continues its "Mom and Dad's Record Collection" series with former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. The politician currently hosts a TV show on Fox News and plays bass guitar in his rock band, Capitol Offense. His musical tastes are similarly multifaceted: Huckabee says he grew up listening to big-band jazz.

"When I entered the box the ladies were very much excited. Mr. Lincoln was seated in a high backed arm-chair with his head leaning towards his right side supported by Mrs. Lincoln who was weeping bitterly. Miss Harris was near her left and behind the President.

"While approaching the President I sent a gentleman for brandy and another for water."

Those are the words of Dr. Charles A. Leale, 23, the first physician to reach Abraham Lincoln's side on April 14, 1865, after assassin John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head.

Over the next couple of weeks, NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is taking a Revolutionary Road trip across North Africa to see how the countries of the Arab Spring are remaking themselves after revolutions last year.

Steve and his team are traveling some 2,000 miles from Tunisia's ancient city of Carthage, across the deserts of Libya and on to Egypt's megacity of Cairo.

When Wisconsin State Sen. Dale Schultz goes to the polls Tuesday, he will vote for GOP Gov. Scott Walker in the gubernatorial recall election.

"I'm a Republican," Schultz said during an interview in his Capitol office in Madison, on the eve of the state's historically acrimonious and expensive recall election.

But if the Democratic candidate, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, succeeds in ousting Walker, Schultz, 58, says, "I'm going to do everything I can to make him successful, too."

Join us today at 3:30 p.m. EDT for a chat on Twitter with pediatrician Robert Block, the current president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Search for the hashtag #nprkids. We'll be tweeting from @NPRHealth with @DrBobBlock for about a half-hour.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco says it will not reconsider an earlier ruling that California's Prop 8 ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional.

That means, as our colleagues at KQED's News Fix blog report, that "Prop 8 supporters will almost certainly ask the United States Supreme Court to hear the case."

With an endorsement from first lady Michelle Obama for its effort, Walt Disney Co. confirmed this morning that it is going to apply new standards to food ads aimed at children and their families during programming for kids. The entertainment giant says it will try "to inspire kids to lead healthier lifestyles."

In an age when the size of the observable universe is known to a few decimal places, today's Transit of Venus offers a good opportunity to reflect on just how far we've come.

(For viewing information, click here.)

Less than 250 years ago, the brightest minds of the Enlightenment were stumped over how far the Earth is from the sun. The transits of the 1760s helped answer that question, providing a virtual yardstick for the universe.