NPR News

The ethereal indie-pop band The Spring Standards makes its second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown. All three members of the group — James Cleare, James Smith and Heather Robb — began playing together in the Delaware/Pennsylvania area when they were students in high school. A few years later, they found themselves living within a few blocks of one another in New York City, and decided to pick up where they left off.

Mark Hemingway is a writer for The Weekly Standard.

Lisa Margonelli directs the New America Foundation's energy initiative.

As gasoline prices passed $3.50 a gallon nationally, the politicking predictably kicked into overdrive. "There's no reason we can't get gasoline down to $2 and $2.50 a gallon," said Newt Gingrich, who in February promised he would accomplish this via an agenda he called "Drill here, drill now, pay less." Two days later three prominent Democrats, including Representative Ed Markey, called for President Obama to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gas prices.

Jeffrey Rosen is the legal affairs editor of The New Republic.

There will be no more "Mr. Nice Guy" in New York. No more "K2," "Skunk" or "Zohai" either.

The New York State Health Department banned the sale of synthetic marijuana products like those on Thursday. So all kinds of wacky stuff that's made to get people high — but is often disguised as potpourri, incense or some mixture of herbs — is now verboten.