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The U.N. Security Council now has before it an application from the Palestinians to join the United Nations as a full member. The U.S. is promising to veto the bid as diplomats try to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, the parties sound very far apart.

Another government shutdown could be looming, the state of Georgia goes ahead with the controversial execution of Troy Davis and overseas, Vladimir Putin announces he's taking another run at the Russian presidency. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz and the Atlantic's James Fallows get behind the headlines of the week's biggest news.

A group of semi-nomadic Irish known as Travellers has been ordered to leave the former scrap yard east of London where they've been living. On Monday a judge will rule on their plea to remain on land that's been their home for a decade.

The Internet has become another battleground as the Syrian government expands its crackdown on opponents. Sophisticated Web surveillance of activists has led to numerous arrests.

StoryCorps is honing in on lessons about learning with a new project for the academic year called the National Teachers Initiative. It'll feature conversations with teachers across the country — teachers talking to each other, students interviewing the teachers who changed their lives, and more.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's campaign speeches often note that he's from Paint Creek, Texas, a place in the flat, dusty, west-central part of the state that's so small it's barely on the map. NPR National Political Correspondent Don Gonyea headed there this week, and along the way watched Perry's old high school play a football game.

Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, a seasoned dealmaker in the Senate, announced his intention to step down from a key leadership role this week. It has prompted a question going around Washington: Are the best deal-brokers giving up?

The 62-year-old endurance swimmer gave up her attempt after more than 40 hours of swimming. The cause: Painful man o' war stings, which medics warned could be life-threatening.

Saudi King Abdullah announced Sunday that the nation's women will gain the right to vote and run as candidates in local elections to be held in 2015 in a major advancement for the rights of women in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom. But the pledge falls short of what many Saudi women were asking for.

Breakthrough technology is allowing previously untapped oil to be drilled in the U.S., Canada and South America. And experts say that's moving the global energy supply's center of gravity away from the Middle East and toward the Americas. In a decade, they say, that could make the U.S. a bigger oil producer than Saudi Arabia. Small towns like Williston, N.D., are reaping the benefits — and bearing the burdens — of the boom.