Look around your kitchen table and you'll see the work of Ambassador Ron Kirk. He's the United States Trade Representative, which is a cabinet-level position, and he's negotiated trade deals all around the world. Host Michel Martin talks to him about why he's choosing to step down from his post and the importance of U.S. trade.

A rash of public school closings in some U.S. cities has parents and teachers reeling. School officials say the closings are needed to save money, but some argue it's a form of discrimination. Host Michel Martin talks with a Chicago reporter and a Philadelphia activist about how the closings could affect students and local communities.

Hugo Chavez was a controversial but charismatic leader of Venezuela. Host Michel Martin speaks with Dan Hellinger, a professor of political science at Webster University, about Chavez's legacy.

What it means to own something in the digital age is being re-negotiated.

Few of us own the music we listen to or the movies we watch in exactly the same way we did a decade ago. And today if you buy a smartphone from a cellphone company, what you can legally do with it — how and where you can use it — may be proscribed even if that phone is fully bought and paid for.

I keep a lot of music on my phone. I have the Stones, Janis Joplin and OK Go.

South Korea upped the ante Wednesday after Pyongyang threatened to scrap the armistice that ended a brutal war between the rival neighbors in 1953, promising retaliation for any North Korean attack.

"If North Korea carries out provocations that threaten the lives and safety of South Koreans, our military will carry out strong and resolute retaliations," South Korea's Gen. Kim Yong-hyun told reporters in Seoul.

A new study out this week finds that ice-free passage from North America to Asia directly over the North Pole could be possible after 2049.

UCLA geographers Laurence Smith and Scott Stephenson published the study Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Secretary of State John Kerry says he believes that arms are reaching the rebels in Syria and that the U.S. supports international efforts to put weapons in the hands of the opposition to step up pressure on President Bashar Assad.

At a news conference in Doha with Qatar's Prime Minister Sheik Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, Kerry said Tuesday that "there are greater guarantees that weapons are being transferred to moderates and directly to the Syrian opposition."

There were 198,000 jobs added to private employers' payrolls in February, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report — a privately produced snapshot of the employment picture that's sometimes a signal of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will say when it releases its data from the same month.

Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro "controls the purse strings" and his opponents have been looking weak, NPR's Juan Forero said earlier today on Morning Edition.