NPR News

For eight decades, Daily Variety has been a Hollywood must-read for everyone from studio heads to actors looking for a big break. But the days of assistants running out to grab the "trades" are over: This week, the Los Angeles institution published its last daily edition.

It's been 10 years since the U.S. invaded Iraq. This week we're taking a look back, revisiting voices you first heard on NPR in 2007. We brought you the story of two sisters who had lost their parents. The older sister wore conservative clothes and recited poetry. The younger sister, just 13 at the time, appeared on the verge of becoming a prostitute.

Like so many stories in Iraq, especially sensitive ones involving shame and sex, this story has to be peeled away in layers, like an onion.

The bubonic plague killed about one-third of Europe's population during the Middle Ages, but today the bacterial infection rarely shows up in the U.S. Only a handful of people catch it each year.

But in 2002, Lucinda Marker and her husband, John Tull, were bitten by fleas infected with the plague near their home in New Mexico. They then took a trip to New York City.