NPR Topics: Story of the Day Podcast

It's been the home of the Cubs since 1916, and in all that time, the team has never won a World Series. So why do fans keep showing up? Locals say Wrigley's hallowed status isn't just about baseball.

Warnings about red tape, long waits, and multiple visits to sign up for Medicaid didn't scare Brad Stevens half as much as the alternative — paying $2,500 out-of-pocket to see a thyroid specialist.

Sales of the airliner are flagging, and airlines are retiring their 747 fleets. The end may be near for the original "jumbo jet," but in its glory days, it offered an experience like no other.

After the Civil War, Horace Wilson left his farm for Japan, where he introduced baseball. He's a legend there, something his relatives, including NPR's Theo Balcomb, didn't know for generations.

Twenty years ago, many scientists didn't think that genes could cause diseases like cancer. The discovery of the BRCA gene for hereditary breast cancer changed that. Mary-Claire King tells how.

The organization of certain brain cells in children with autism seems already different from that of typical children by the sixth or seventh month of fetal development, a study hints.

The company, citing religion, argued before the Supreme Court that it shouldn't have to provide contraception coverage in its health plan. The coverage is mandated by the Affordable Care Act.

Asian carp are not just a problem for the Great Lakes region. Fish processors in Kentucky are finding novel ways to dispose of them — including sending them to China, where they are prized as food.

California's strategy for reducing its prison population involves shifting more responsibility for recurring and ex-offenders on local communities.

In the aftermath of the 1989 oil spill off the Alaskan coast, scientists expected the worst damage to be short-lived. Instead, the spill shattered conventional wisdom about oil's affect on wildlife.

The Pentagon's Defense Department Research Agency — DARPA — is pushing to build a semi-autonomous search and rescue robot. But scientists see obvious dual uses, for war.

Many of today's parents spent their childhoods playing on dangerous playgrounds and spending a lot of time unsupervised. Hanna Rosin says their kids need to take those same risks to feel independent.

The approach would recognize changes in behavior and in the brain. Right now there aren't treatments that slow down the disease, but identifying high-risk patients early on could help with prevention.

In the 1980s, NASA engineer Robert Farquhar came up with a sly plan to divert the ISEE-3 satellite from its original path to visit a comet instead. Now Farquhar has another big plan for his "baby."

The price and difficulty of building robots has fallen, and Google has scooped a half-dozen robotics firms. It's a safe bet that bots will be an increasing part of our workplaces and daily lives.