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GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and socialist rival Francois Hollande were the top vote-getters in the first round of the French presidential election today. They'll head to a runoff on May 6. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris sent us this report.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

On Friday, TV audiences got their first taste of the media frenzy that could come with a televised Trayvon Martin trial when a Florida judge granted bail to George Zimmerman. That decision, whether to televise or not, has yet to be made.

Writer John McWhorter thinks it would be a very good thing. And in the latest issue of The New Republic, he argues that it could become a bookend to another famous and racially charged trial: the O.J. Simpson case.

The Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan had five unplanned shutdowns last year. It's one of the area's biggest employers, and its safety record is one of the worst in the country. Now it's trying to prove to federal regulators that it can meet their standards.

On the shores of Lake Michigan, the Palisades Power Plant is tucked in between tall sand dunes in Covert Township, Mich., at the southern edge of Van Buren State Park.

Akash Kapur is the son of an Indian father and an American mother. In 2003, after working professionally in New York City for more than a decade, he decided to return to India. As he writes in his book, India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India, he arrived in a place he hardly recognized.

An increasing number of restaurants in the U.S. display signature dishes made with Kobe beef. From Kobe steak raviolis to Kobe beef burgers, you name it, Kobe beef seems to be popping up everywhere — except it's not Kobe beef.

Food writer Larry Olmsted of Forbes.com couldn't help but notice the trend and decided to bust everyone's bubble in a three-part expose of the so-called domestic Kobe beef industry.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Today marks the 32nd annual London Marathon. Summer Olympic hopeful, Wilson Kipsang, won the men's race, while fellow Kenyan Mary Keitany won the women's for a second consecutive year. Others, well, Vicki Barker met the event's most seasoned veterans: the so-called Ever-Presents, who've run in all 31 previous marathons. Time is reducing their numbers, she says - but not their enthusiasm.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

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SISTER WYNONA CARR: (Singing) Life is a ball game, being played each day...

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MARTIN: And if it's true that life's a ball game, NPR's Mike Pesca is WEEKEND EDITION's umpire, calling the pitches and the plays as he sees them. He joins us now to talk more about sports and life and - hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hey. How are you doing, Rachel?

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

On Sunday morning, Formula One racing cars are competing for first place in a controversial race in the Arab kingdom of Bahrain. Violent anti-government protests have continued in the run-up to the race. Host Rachel Martin talks with Nabeel Rajab, president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Mitt Romney, the presumptive candidate for the Republican nomination, is hiring hundreds of new staffers over the next few months. The former Massachusetts governor is still surrounded by a trusted core of senior advisers, however, and they aren't going anywhere. Host Rachel Martin talks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about the inner circle.

Longtime Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch faced a contentious and much-watched state convention Saturday, two years after fellow Republican Bob Bennett was ousted from office at the same event for not being conservative enough. NPR's Howard Berkes reports.

Have we seen the end of the Tea Party movement? New York Times reporter Kate Zernike is the author of Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America. Host Rachel Martin talks with Zernike about the Tea Party's current relevance and influence in the political process.

Charles "Chuck" Colson, a key figure in the Richard Nixon White House, died Saturday. Colson was the president's special counsel and went to prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. While behind bars, he embraced Christianity. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, he went on to become a central evangelical leader after his release.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments next week on the most divisive immigration law in recent memory. Arizona's Legislature passed SB 1070 two years ago, but much of it has been put on hold pending the court's decision.

Still, supporters say the law has achieved one of its stated goals: Thousands of illegal immigrants have self-deported, leaving the state on their own. The real reason — and consequence — of such a demographic shift may be more complex, however.

Members of the Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition sport calluses and legs hardened by three months of hiking through sawgrass, palmetto stands and piney woods.

On Sunday, these four adventurers mark the end of a 1,000-mile trek across Florida, from the tip of the Everglades to the Okefenokee Swamp.

Just the arrival of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner prompted supporters in her Peronist movement to break into chants last Monday. The event, choreographed to feel momentous, was at the presidential palace. Fernandez de Kirchner announced plans to expropriate assets of the Spanish oil firm Repsol in Argentina.

Through a window, television viewers could see a huge image of Evita Peron, the famous 1950s-era populist whose presence is deeply felt in today's government.

In his State of the Union address two years ago, President Obama argued there were a few things the U.S. needed to do in order to recover from the economic recession. One of them was to export more of our goods around the world.

"The more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America," Obama said.

That night, the president unveiled a new goal: to double U.S. exports over the next five years. It would be an increase that the president said would "support two million jobs in America."

In 2009, prosecutors in Detroit discovered more than 11,000 boxes of potential evidence in rape cases left completely unprocessed. Row upon row of what are called "rape kits" remained untouched on shelves in a police evidence room for years. No DNA evidence was extracted; no DNA evidence was used to catch or prosecute the assailants.

Since then, Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy has lead the effort to sort through those 11,000 rape kits and to find the funding to get them processed.

Writer Adam Gopnik describes the idea of his latest piece in the New Yorker: that the prime source of nostalgia in popular culture is usually the period 40 years beforehand.