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NPR's Linda Gradstein reports from Ramallah that many Palestinians look forward to reaching a peace agreement with Israel as a way of revitalizing the local economy. They say a peace agreement would attract foreign investors who currently are leery of the region's political instability. Some Palestinian economists also suggest that under a peace agreement, Israel might be convinced to lift tariffs and remove restrictions that prevent goods from travelling between the West Bank and Gaza. Unemployment is high in Palestinian territories and per capita income is much lower than in Israel, a situation that fuels Palestinian anger.

This year's games welcome the largest proportion of women Olympians in history. Among them are 50 Muslim women, who defied the odds to attend. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports.

A photographic exhibit on display in Tel Aviv depicts what life is like for Israeli troops in the divided West Bank city of Hebron. The soldiers behind the exhibit hope the raw look at the military's behavior will shake up complacency among the Israeli public. NPR's Julie McCarthy reports.

Writer F.X. Toole. At age 70, he's just published his first book. It's a collection of short stories about boxing called Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner. (ECCO/HarperCollins) For twenty years, he's been a cut man, stopping the bleeding so fighters can go on to the next round. Toole has been writing for 40 years, but it was the publication of his first story last year in a small literary magazine that caught the attention of a book agent. Writers James Ellroy and Joyce Carol Oates have praised this book, the former calling it "the best boxing fiction ever written." Others have compared his literary style to Frank McCourt's. Toole worked as a cabbie, bartender and bullfighter before entering the world of boxing.

The U.S. military commander alleges that Iran's ambassador to Iraq belongs to an elite force of the Iranian revolutionary guard that has targeted U.S. forces.

President Obama and congressional leaders from both major parties met at the White House for the first of what will likely be many negotiations aimed at averting a plunge over the so-called fiscal cliff. Afterward, Congressional leaders sounded optimistic about the chances for a deal.

Since Republican Richard Mourdock made a controversial comment about rape, his opponent has been trying to pick up the voters Mourdock may have lost. But not everyone has turned away from him. Meanwhile, outside money has been pouring in.

Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian strongman who rose to power as president of Yugoslavia, then found himself indicted on more than 60 counts of war crimes, is buried in his hometown. Serbs faithful to Milosevic pay tribute at a Belgrade rally.

Here's a word you don't associate with the school cafeteria: fresh. But last year, Abernathy Elementary School in Portland, Ore., bought a second-hand stove and a big mixer and started cooking all its food from scratch. Success is measured by the trash: Kids are throwing less food away.

Could you be happy in a condo unit in a building next to an 800-bed jail? What if the jail had shopping on the ground floor? Brooklyn's corrections commissioner is proposing just such a project.

The group Ollabelle came out of an open mike night in New York City called, "Sunday School for Sinners." Their music captures the sound and feeling of the American South, from it churches to its porches and honkytonks.

She's a spider's spider — sophisticated, pretty (by her own account), authoritarian — and she says something profound about love and commitment. Melissa Block looks at the heroine of Charlotte's Web.