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The weather and demand from China are driving prices up. But how do you say the word pecan? NPR's Melissa Block gets answers from a pecan farmer and a linguistics expert.

Dish Network announced this week that it will shutter the 300 or so remaining Blockbuster stores it owns across the country. But in some places, dozens of the video stores will have an unlikely afterlife.

More than 600,000 have been left homeless and hungry by the devastating storm. In response, humanitarian agencies are mounting the largest relief operation since the Haitian earthquake in 2010. The biggest challenge right now is getting the basics — clean water and food — to the hardest hit areas.

The conglomerate is launching new networks — targeted at diverse audiences and run by Sean Combs, Magic Johnson and Robert Rodriguez — to satisfy an agreement made with the FCC when the company merged with NBCUniversal.

One reason the rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been so rocky is the difficult landscape the health care overhaul is trying to cover. The system was a complicated contraption to begin with, and the hybrid replacement is just as hard to negotiate.

Mexico is considering relaxing its law prohibiting foreigners from owning land within 30 miles of the coast or about 60 miles from an international border. Real estate developers say the change would lead to a boom along Mexico's coasts. But opponents fear it could launch a modern-day foreign land grab.

Faced with harsh criticism over its vast surveillance operation, the NSA and its allies are pushing back. They say their intelligence collection is being done in response to demands from the executive branch of the U.S. government and not on its own. The NSA says it is currently working on 36,000 pages of what it calls "requirements" — intel speak for intelligence assignments it gets from branches of the U.S. government.

Over the five months since Edward Snowden began leaking secret documents to the media about American spying, President Obama has adjusted his response to the disclosures. At first, he suggested the concern was misplaced, but more recently, his message has been that something needs to change.

The Smithsonian Institution has millions of fossils, sculptures and other historic artifacts in its vast collections. Twenty of them are now available for 3-D printing — and viewing from every conceivable angle — online.

Souleyman discusses the importance of musical experimentation in an unlikely setting. In conversation with NPR's Renee Montagne, the Syrian electronic musician also expresses his desire to perform in his homeland again.