Last fall, wealthy Chinese gathered at a Beijing hotel to hear a pitch by Patrick Quinn, the governor of Illinois. He wanted them to invest in a convention center project at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

"You can't have capitalism without capital," Quinn said to the group of potential investors. "So we really are interested in encouraging people from everywhere, particularly here in China ... to consider the state of Illinois as a place to make investments."

The required minimum investment: half a million dollars.

It's often assumed that even in tough times, lawyers can find good jobs. But that proposition is being overturned by a tight legal market, and by a glut of graduates.

The nation's law schools are facing growing pressure to be more upfront about their graduates' job prospects. Many students say they were lured in by juicy job numbers, but when they got out, all they ended up with is massive debt.

Every Friday at 9 p.m., thousands of prisoners across East Texas settle into their bunks, pull out their hand-held radios and tune in to The Prison Show, the only radio show in the country that caters to prisoners and the families they've left behind.

These days, memoirs are often the target of contempt. A scathing slam in New York Times Book Review this year inveighed against "oversharing"; and in the New Yorker, the memoirist was likened to "a drunken guest at a wedding... motivated by an overpowering need to be the center of attention." If the narrative deals with socially unacceptable matters like abuse, addiction, family dysfunction, or even poverty, the scorn gets even thicker.

If you watch much TV, you probably know that the Real Housewives of New Jersey are no strangers to the surgeon's knife. And if the state's plastic surgeons get their way, those housewives may be able to save a few dollars on their next procedure.

New Jersey's legislature has voted to phase out the so-called "Botax" — a 6 percent tax on cosmetic surgery and elective procedures like Botox — and the bill is currently on Gov. Chris Christie's desk for approval.

A luxury cruise liner went aground off Italy's coast on Friday.

When Joshua Bell was 21, he recorded an iconic piece of chamber music for piano and violin — the Sonata in A major by Cesar Franck. Today, Bell is 44 and he's recorded it again. It's on his new album, French Impressions, with pianist Jeremy Denk.

All Things Considered host Robert Siegel invited Bell to listen to his old recording for a little session of compare-and-contrast.

"Do you hear the same violinist?" Siegel asks, after playing for Bell the opening bars of his 1989 recording.

Jon Huntsman billed himself as the Harley-riding, mild-mannered candidate of civility. But his moderate positions never registered with Republican primary voters and left him languishing in the polls.

Huntsman, 51, ended his bid for the Republican presidential nomination Monday after struggling to keep pace in a largely conservative field. He also failed to distinguish himself as the Mitt Romney alternative, unable to escape the shadow of the other millionaire former governor and Mormon in the race.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. --  Almost everyone agrees that broadcasters should be prohibited from broadcasting “indecent” material.  And Federal Communications Commission rules, in fact, ban such broadcasts.  So let me ask you this:  What, exactly, is “indecent” material?

    This is the issue argued last week before the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case that challenges how the government regulates indecent broadcasts.  Note that the issue is not if the government can regulate such material rather, the question deals with how the rules are enforced.

The captain of the cruise ship that capsized off Tuscany made an unauthorized, unapproved deviation from the ship's programmed course, a "human error" that led to the grounding of the vessel, the chief executive of ship's Italian owner said Monday. At least six people died in the incident.