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The award-winning songwriter speaks with NPR's Scott Simon about the value of melody, and writing a song about rain for a movie scene that had none.

While the talk inside the Texas convention hall this weekend is about keeping up the fight against gun restrictions and staying true to the Constitution, a small protest against gun violence is being held outside.

Stephen Johnstone started celebrating with the winning families and jockeys — uninvited — in 1963. In the 18 times he's sneaked into the festivities, he's never been caught. Once you're past the gate, he says, your job is to share the joy of the moment.

Your inbox overflows with spam, so what else is new? But have you ever wondered how junk email got its name? And where all of it comes from? Finn Burton, author of Spam: A Shadow History of the Internet describes the spam business, how it's become a criminal enterprise and how you can protect yourself online.

It's not just the conversation about guns and school safety that's changed since the Newtown elementary school massacre — it's also the plethora of products being marketed to school districts that are typically cash-strapped but desperate to prove they're doing something to provide better security.

Host Scott Simon talks to director Baz Luhrmann about his new film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic American novel, The Great Gatsby.

The fighting in Syria has created tens of thousands of refugees seeking shelter in neighboring Jordan. Host Scott Simon talks with NPR's Deborah Amos about a refugee camp in northern Jordan that has quickly become the second largest such camp in the world. Then we hear voices from a small town in southern Lebanon, where recently arrived Syrian refugees now outnumber the Lebanese residents.

Illustrator Ralph Steadman had never heard of Hunter S. Thompson before he flew to Churchill Downs on assignment to cover the Kentucky Derby. But after an unforgettable, booze-ridden weekend with the writer, Steadman's life was never the same.

It's Derby Day in Kentucky, where days and weeks of anticipation will culminate in a race that lasts just over two minutes. When the starting gates open at 6:24 p.m. EDT, 19 horses will race on a wet Kentucky Derby track.

After local authorities got word of a planned environmental protest in the southwestern city of Chengdu, they decided to make Saturday a workday. Security personnel, meanwhile, converged on the city center in a display of force.