NPR News

Russians continue to take to the streets to air their grievances against the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. But now, after Putin's election this month to a six-year term as president, the crowds number only in the hundreds — not the tens of thousands that turned out before the vote.

In the words of writer Boris Akunin, a popular speaker at the earlier rallies: "The civic movement has entered a new phase. The first phase, romantic and euphoric, is over."

Now is the time, Akunin says, for power to develop from the bottom up.

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi could face 10 years in prison and deportation to his native India after being convicted of bias intimidation. Ravi used a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having an intimate encounter with another man. Clementi killed himself several days later.

In recent months, a swarm of controversies have erupted over issues of women's health — from the split in the Catholic church over employer coverage of contraceptives to the proposed ultrasound laws in Virginia and Texas to the uproar over funding for Planned Parenthood.

Three weeks after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, no arrests have been made in what critics are calling a case of racial profiling. Columnist Leonard Pitts says the incident exposes society's "blindness" to African-Americans.

While most of the country has been enjoying spring-like temperatures for weeks now, parts of Arizona got a pretty significant visit from a waning winter: CNN reports that "the city of Flagstaff is still digging out of 10 to 14 inches of snow from the weekend, which prompted school closings in the city for Monday. The city of Prescott received 8 to 12 inches."