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Victoria Nuland, a top State Department official, thought she was having a private conversation. But someone else was listening, and her undiplomatic remarks were leaked online. This is how it may have happened.

Alex Rodriguez has accepted his season-long ban from baseball and dropped his lawsuits against the MLB and the Players Association. NPR's Scott Simon talks with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine about one of baseball's greatest and most infamous players.

Talks are underway between representatives of the Taliban and Pakistan's government. Meanwhile, the U.S. appears to have slowed the pace of drone attacks on Pakistan, which may be intended to allow Islamabad to pursue these peace talks. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Shuja Nawaz, the director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council.

A curious series of hieroglyphics appears in the first pages of the classic 1984 textbook, Lectures on Macroeconomics. Recently experts decoded the symbols and were surprised to find a poem. NPR's Scott Simon speaks with the book's co-author, Olivier Blanchard, and his daughter, Serena. Ms. Blanchard was just 8 years old when she wrote the verse that has puzzled economics students for generations.

Gray wolves are a controversial and polarizing animal in much of the American West. Wolves have slowly come back from extinction, forcing people to learn how to coexist with the cunning predator. One farmer is teaching his cattle to huddle together as bison do when threatened — there is safety in numbers.

A Spanish princess will appear in court Saturday to face charges of tax fraud and money laundering. It's the first time a Spanish royal has ever been tried in a criminal case. From Madrid, reporter Lauren Frayer talks to NPR's Scott Simon about the latest in a series of scandals that have sent the royal family's approval rating to an all-time low.

The United Nations has just released a grim report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan over the last year. Casualties rose 14 percent in 2013, with nearly 3,000 people killed and more than 5,500 injured.

The Internet giant has been ordered to publish a public notice that it violated French regulations on user privacy and was ordered to pay a $200,000 fine.

The Sochi Olympics have been criticized for poor preparation, security concerns, and Russia's policies on human and animal rights. The Russians aren't pleased. But host-bashing is a popular pastime.

Will Sochi be a city of super-sized, expensive venues that sit mostly empty in the future? Maybe having different cities host the Olympics doesn't make much sense.