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Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews two new releases: Coldplay's X&Y and Dressy Bessy's Electrified.

Also: The fear of Friday the 13th; the Senate continues its slowed down marathon nomination process; the Philippines raises the death toll from Typhoon Haiyan; and London will get its first whiskey distillery since all were closed more than a century ago.

Our book critic reviews two new novels: Pound for Pound by late writer F.X. Toole, and The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos.

Mississippi is the most obese state in the nation. That's not something top-ranking state officials like to boast about, so they've decided to take matters into their own hands. A group of state lawmakers has begun an effort to shed hundreds of pounds. It's hoped their weight loss will spur others on.

Tom Vitale reports on a new collection of short stories about boxing called Rope Burns. The 70-year-old author, F.X. Toole, has a life story as interesting as the fiction he writes.

Music critic Milo Miles tells us about a New York group of hip-hop DJs known as the X-Ecutioners. Their new CD is called Revolutions.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews Song X: Twentieth Anniversary, a reissue and remix of a 1985 collaboration between guitarist Pat Metheny and saxophonist Ornette Coleman.

The year in television started with a bust — or to be more precise, a writer's strike — but Fresh Air's TV critic says there were plenty of TiVo-worthy programs in 2008. Prominent among them: AMC's Mad Men.

At age 70, the late writer and former boxing "cut man" F.X. Toole published his first book, a collection of short stories about boxing called Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner, to critical praise. We rebroadcast a Sept. 26, 2000, interview with Toole.

By 2017, the two American companies are expected to take over a job that NASA has relied upon Russia to perform: shuttling astronauts to the International Space Station.