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On July 12, 1962, AT&T's satellite Telstar 1 became the first commercial spacecraft to beam television images from the United States to Europe. But the satellite soon began to malfunction. Cold War radioactivity scrambled its instruments. Host Scott Simon talks to engineer Walter Brown, who helped build the satellite.

There was more gloomy news for the eurozone this week. Italy's debt rating was lowered, people in Spain took to the streets and Germany's highest court heard arguments against measures central to efforts to contain the crisis. Host Scott Simon talks with NPR's Eric Westervelt about the week's financial news.

In some of the dirtiest places on Earth, author and environmentalist Andrew Blackwell found something worth looking at. His book, Visit Sunny Chernobyl, tours the deforestation of the Amazon, the oil sand mines in Canada and the world's most polluted city, located in China.

The Mitt Romney campaign has been busy this week fending off attacks about Romney's involvement with Bain Capital after he claims to have ceased dealing with the company's day-to-day operations. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about how this episode reminds him of the "Swiftboat" attacks against Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004.

For decades, coal represented half of the nation's electricity generation, but it dropped to only 34 percent in March. Technological breakthroughs in fracking have led to a gas boom that's caused prices to plummet, and now hundreds of coal miners are being laid off as the nation shifts away from the oldest and most plentiful source of electricity in the U.S.

Yuma, Ariz., along the Mexican border, has the country's highest jobless rate, at 28.9 percent — more than three times the national rate. Bismarck, N.D., has the lowest rate, at just 2.5 percent. Both communities are struggling with the realities of those economic extremes.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Egypt on the tail end of her Asian tour. She has urged Egypt's new, Islamist president to engage in a dialogue with the military to defuse a political and constitutional crisis that is threatening Egypt's transition to a civilian-led democracy. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

No country has enjoyed more spectacular growth in recent decades than China. But the economy that will one day replace America's as the world's largest also faces a lot of challenges. Guest host David Greene talks to NPR's Frank Langfitt, who was a reporter in China in the '90s and returned to Shanghai for NPR last year.

U.N. investigators visited the site of a mass killing in Syria. Their initial report cites a targeted attack on the village of Tremseh, but have been unable to confirm the death toll. The Syrian government says it was an anti-terrorist operation and no civilians were killed. Guest host David Greene talks to NPR's Deborah Amos.

Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin today was named vice chair of the National Governors Association during the closing session of the annual NGA meeting in…