Canada's leaders have ended their country's longstanding resistance to asbestos being called a dangerous material under United Nations guidelines, a decision that reflects a shift in the leadership of Quebec province, home of Canada's asbestos industry.

Quebec's incoming premier, Pauline Marois, promised late in her campaign that she would shut down the region's asbestos mines for good. She says that she will use money that would have gone to restart the mines to diversify the local economy.

As Dan Karpenchuk reports for NPR's Newscast unit:

American Idol has always been a show with two audiences: the real one and the imagined one. The real one has a median viewer age of about 50, while the imagined one has a median age of about 15. You don't see the real audience frantically waving signs during the live show, but the imagined one. Idol enjoys presenting itself as a phenomenon for excitement-hungry teenagers, but in fact, it's just as much a phenomenon for their parents.

How many teens are sending sexual photos or texts by phone? And what else are they doing?

Researchers surveyed nearly 2,000 high schoolers in Los Angeles to find out. Among kids who had cellphones or access to them (and that cover almost all of them), about 15 percent reported "sexting."

In the pre-dawn hours today the wife, two sons and daughter of the man most prominently linked to the anti-Islam video that has sparked violence in many Muslim cities fled their home in Cerritos, Calif.

As Americans increasingly rely on cards, not cash, to pay for small items like coffee and snacks, it's not always easy to tip the baristas and counter folks who make those transactions run smoothly. A new device called the "Dip Jar" might fix that, by allowing customers to dip a card to give $1 to the staff.

That might come as welcome news to workers behind the counter, who've seen debit and credit cards take over from cash. As a result, there's less change from which to pull a tip for the traditional jar that's often seen on counters where coffee, beer, or sandwiches are sold.

Singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle makes his second appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live on the campus of West Virginia University in Morgantown. Backed by his own band — which includes Paul Niehaus on pedal steel, Vince Ilagan on upright bass and Jon Radford on drums — Earle plays songs from his new album, Nothing's Gonna Change The Way You Feel About Me Now.

Following through on what he said he would do if the city's teachers didn't end their week-old strike and return to their classrooms, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked a judge to intervene.