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Preparations at the site of Tuesday's papal conclave include a high-tech scrubbing of the chapel for bugs and electronic monitoring equipment. Wi-Fi will be blocked throughout Vatican City, and cardinals with Twitter and Facebook accounts have been warned.

Audie Cornish talks to Kevin Bales, a professor of contemporary slavery at the University of Hull and lead author of the 2013 Global Slavery Index. The first-time report by the Walk Free Foundation estimates that there are nearly 30 million people in slavery across the globe.

Severe drought has forever changed the landscape in New Mexico. Grasslands have been replaced by desert, and ranchers to reduce the number of cattle grazing open fields. Recent rains have brought some relief, but it's not enough to reverse desertification.

As the pope begins a meeting with his Council of Cardinals, an Italian newspaper publishes a wide-ranging interview with him, in which the pontiff affirms separation of church and state and expounds on the nature of good and evil.

Dawn Dekle has made a career out of running schools in conflict zones. She is the newest president of the American University of Iraq. Previously, she was provost of the American University of Afghanistan. Renee Montagne talks to Dekle about her unique work.

Conservatives have driven the debate and the showdown in Washington this week. But even as national polls have shown strong public disapproval of the government shutdown, conservative media outlets — on the air, on cable, and on the Internet — have provided a voice of support for Republicans on the Hill and created a like-minded community for their audience.

With the city's parking meter lease making voters leery of new privatization deals, Mayor Rahm Emanuel called for too many public interest protections in the Midway Airport lease, and too few investors saw it as worth the risk. Increasingly, though, governments turn to private investors to run public assets like roads and prisons.

Disruptions in government services will slow growth, at least in the short term. But economists say they can't refine their predictions because they have no idea how long the shutdown might last or how many federal workers may be furloughed.

Gun sellers in the state say they couldn't keep their shelves stocked in the days leading up to the implementation of the law, which takes effect Tuesday. The legislation requires gun buyers to be fingerprinted, limits bullet purchases and bans the sale of many assault weapons.

Michigan is expected to bring in a record-setting apple crop this year. So how do you sort and package 2,000 Galas in a minute? Farmers have turned to the Rolls Royce of fruit processing: a robot that uses computer vision to weed out the bad apples.