All Things Considered

With the conventions over and the latest jobs report out, both President Obama and Mitt Romney were on the road Friday. Mr. Obama began in New Hampshire and ended in Iowa, and his Republican challenger did just the opposite.

A new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine looked at more 200 other studies on the health properties and benefits of organic foods — and found no clear benefit. But what do consumers think? In the wake of this news, Deena Prichep talked to shoppers about their organic produce purchasing, the reasons behind the choices they make, and how the news will change the way they spend their money.

The normal bike market is pretty straightforward — supplier, middleman and buyer. The market for stolen bikes has the same roles, but different players. Here's a quick look at how it works.

The Supplier

The supplier, instead of Schwinn or Cannondale, is the bike thief.

Hal Ruzzal, a bike mechanic at Bicycle Habitat in Manhattan, describes two types of thieves.

Thief Type 1: "Your standard drug addict."

This summer, All Things Considered has asked listeners and guests to share a personal memory of one song discovered through their parents' record collection.

NPR listener Mel Fisher Ostrowski wrote in to tell us about how Don McLean's "American Pie" helped her "bridge a gap between my long-deceased father and baby boy." Hear the radio version at the audio link above — and read a lightly edited version of Ostrowski's original letter to NPR below.

Eight Detroit-area public school students returning to classes this week are plaintiffs against a school system they say has failed them.

Their families and the American Civil Liberties Union say that the Highland Park school system has denied the students the right to learn to read, and that the state has a responsibility to fix that.

Michelle Johnson has five children in Highland Park schools. Her daughter is heading into the 12th grade, but can read at only about the fourth-grade level.

The conflict in Syria is sending a staggering number of refugees into neighboring countries. Turkey, Jordan and even Iraq are building tent cities.

But Lebanon has yet to build such camps. The country is already home to more than a dozen teeming, squalid camps for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled the war after Israel's creation in 1948, as well as their descendants.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

People in Charlotte are watching the convention by the thousands, but people who are watching on television are doing so by the millions. Last night, the convention had some serious TV competition. NBC went with the NFL season opener, the Cowboys-Giants game, instead of Bill Clinton's speech.

How many people are watching the conventions? We turn now to Eric Deggans, who is TV and media critic for the Tampa Bay Times. Hi, Eric.

ERIC DEGGANS: How are you doing?