All Things Considered

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(SOUNDBITE OF CLOCK TICKING)

GUY RAZ, HOST:

She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk through the door. That's the starting sentence for Round 8 of Three-Minute Fiction. That is our contest where we ask you to write an original short story that can be read in about three minutes. We are no longer accepting submissions for this round.

Our readers from across the country are almost done going through all of the more than 6,000 submissions this round. So let's hear a few samples of their favorites so far.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

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

In France, the voters have spoken: a new president elected today and his name is Francois Hollande.

PRESIDENT-ELECT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Foreign language spoken)

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President Obama held a pair of campaign rallies today, his first big public events of the 2012 election. He targeted two key battleground states: Ohio and Virginia. NPR's Scott Horsley is traveling with the president and joins weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz to talk about the events.

Jason Mraz's 2008 single "I'm Yours" was a multiplatinum global hit. In fact, it set a record by staying on Billboard's Hot 100 chart for 76 weeks — more than any other song in the magazine's 51-year history.

Although Mraz's new record, Love Is a Four Letter Word, was written on the heels of a breakup, the songs are mostly sunny and positive. Mraz says he was more interested in making something relatable than in zeroing in on his own experiences.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

The Obama administration today released a new set of rules for oil and gas drilling on public land. As NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports, the rules are meant to keep companies from polluting water when they use the engineering technique known as fracking.

ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Hydraulic fracturing is what made the current drilling booms possible. Companies force hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals deep underground to open up cracks in the rock and make the oil or natural gas flow faster.

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The Catholic Archbishop of Philadelphia announced today that he is removing five priests from ministry. Charles Chaput said investigations into other priests accused of abuse will continue.

But as NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports, victims' advocates are not satisfied.

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So, 115,000 jobs added last month. And on that subject, Mitt Romney had this to say on Fox News today.

MITT ROMNEY: Well, we should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month. This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery.

CORNISH: We'll dig into the math of that number. But more on the politics of the moment, we turn to our regular commentators, columnist E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of the New York Times. Welcome, gentlemen.

A small-town mayor in Utah is trying to make congressional history.

The perjury case against baseball star Roger Clemens appeared to be falling apart on Wednesday. Key witness Andy Pettitte, who had previously said Clemens told him he had used human growth hormone, said he was only "50-50" on whether he heard Clemens correctly. And the judge is thinking about striking the Pettitte testimony. Nina Totenberg talks to Robert Siegel.

Maybe you needed a good cry, but you were at work and didn't have easy access to your DVD of "The Notebook." So, you searched for that heart wrenching break-up scene on YouTube and let the tears flow freely.

Could be, nostalgic for times past when "real" men wore suits and drank bourbon, you were itching to watch Humphrey Bogart tell Ingrid Bergman, "Here's lookin' at you kid."

If the prosecution at the Roger Clemens perjury trial hoped for a dramatic showdown on Tuesday, the day was a big disappointment. The prosecution's star witness, Clemens' friend and onetime pitching ace Andy Pettitte, provided as much, if not more, ammunition for the defense.

Clemens is charged with lying to Congress when he testified that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

And I'm Audie Cornish.

President Obama flew to Afghanistan today and signed a historic agreement on the future of the U.S. involvement in that country. The president traveled under tight security to Kabul and met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai for a signing ceremony at the palace there.