The Texan won the first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958 — and wooed Russians in the process. Van Cliburn died Wednesday at 78.

Audie Cornish talks to regular political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of The New York Times. They discuss the sequester and the Supreme Court's consideration of a Voting Rights Act case.

Poutine, at its simplest, is french fries, cheese curds and gravy. In Chicago, 11 restaurants recently pitted their own variations on the Canadian late-night dish against one another.

Melissa Block talks to regular political commentators E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of The New York Times. They discuss the automatic budget cuts scheduled for March 1.

State officials in Illinois want to conduct DNA tests on the top hat on display at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to see if he ever really wore it. Museum officials think the idea is worse than bad.

It began like a typical Bollywood story. Boy meets girl in pre-Independence India. They fall in love. Her family says no way. So one night, she escapes. NPR commentator Sandip Roy recounts how his great-aunt jumped off a moving train for love, and went on to have a happy 60-year-long marriage.

This week, the French National Assembly has been debating a bill on same-sex marriage and gay adoption. But a small scandal erupted after several lawmakers, who support gay marriage, were spotted playing Scrabble on their iPads during the parliamentary debate.