NPR News

President Obama traveled to a Republican stronghold in the swing state of Virginia. And he addressed a group that has long favored the GOP — veterans and military families.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney campaigned with veterans in Northern Virginia on Thursday. And like President Obama, he was in territory that voted for the opposite party four years ago.

Now that Missouri Republican Todd Akin is not dropping out of the Senate race against incumbent Claire McCaskill, the GOP is rethinking how distant it wants to remain from him. Akin became toxic for remarks about "legitimate rape" — but the GOP Senate map nationwide is looking increasingly grim.

Spain is slashing another $50 billion from its budget — scrapping early retirement programs, hiking taxes and sparking public outrage in the streets. Madrid is struggling to avoid a second, larger European Union bailout, beyond what it's already getting for its banks. But markets have plummeted, dragged down by investors' doubts about whether Spain can go it alone.

A future in which a discarded cell phone dissolves into a landfill, rather than living on for thousands of years as garbage, may not be that far off. Melissa Block talks with John A. Rogers, a 2009 MacArthur Fellow and professor of engineering at University of Illinois, about his research into "transient electronics."