Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced that the military will award a new medal to recognize exceptional accomplishments in areas including drone and cyber warfare. Brookings Institution senior fellow Peter Singer argues that this is an important step in recognizing the changing nature of war.

Tracy Johnson lost her wife to war, but she didn't lose her family.

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.

Karen Russell's new collection of short stories has dead presidents reincarnated as horses, girls turning into silkworms, and vampires who quench their thirst for blood with lemons. Reviewer Meg Wolitzer says that in Russell's world we aren't fixed in space and time but can change at any moment.

He was in his late 50s. She was in her late 40s. Louis and Harriet Caplan talk about how they became a couple at a stage in life when most people give up on falling in love, and about making the most of their time together.

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.