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Italian authorities have arrested the captain of a cruise ship that ran aground near the island of Giglio last night. He's being investigated for involuntary manslaughter in the accident that killed three passengers and injured about 30. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks with NPR's Sylvia Poggioli.

One upon a time, the largest glass telescope mirror was 100 inches in diameter. Today, scientists are casting a mirror 27 feet in diameter that will be part of one of the most powerful telescopes on Earth. NPR's Joe Palca speaks with weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz from the mirror laboratory, located under the football stadium at the University of Arizona.

Evangelical conservatives met in Texas this weekend and decided to throw their support behind former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, but some fear the support is too little, too late. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich finished a distant second at the meeting. NPR's Joel Rose reports.

The killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist this week marked the fifth time in two years that assassins have targeted scientists in Tehran. Weekends on All Things Considered takes a look at what this new level of diplomatic strain means for the Middle East and the U.S. economy.

The Citizens United Supreme Court decision has made for a sea change in American politics, but not the change most observers expected. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz and The Atlantic's James Fallows discuss how corporate money has kept more candidates in the presidential race.

Private equity firms are under the microscope this week as a pro-Gingrich superPAC hounds GOP candidate Mitt Romney for his role as head of Bain Capital. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks with Dan Primack, senior editor of Fortune Magazine, about how these firms operate and the legitimacy of these attacks.

The Inquisition was initially designed to deal with Christian heretics, but author Cullen Murphy says that "inquisitorial impulse" is still at work today. In fact, he says, it was the harbinger of the modern world.

The population of Montana just hit 1 million, but not all residents are celebrating. It's one of the least dense states in the nation, and they like it that way.

Candidates were explicitly prohibited from even mentioning each other during the presidential forum Saturday. Still, going into the last week of campaigning in South Carolina, most found ways to get in a hit without naming their rivals. Front-runner Mitt Romney was the biggest target.

In the past half-century, the fertility rate for a typical Brazilian woman has tumbled from six children to fewer than two. There are several factors at work, and one of them appears to be the glamorous female characters in hugely popular soap operas, who have few, if any, children.