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A massive analysis of some 350,000 students in 53 countries has uncovered a paradox: Students in many countries that are mediocre at science have an inflated sense of good they are.

The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan is calling for an immediate halt in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon. Annan told the U.N. Security Council that a cessation of hostilities would "give diplomacy the chance to work out a practical package of actions."

Commentator Angela Nissel, author of Mixed: My Life in Black and White, has some suggestions for how to respond when people with a mixed ethnic background are asked about their heritage.

In parts of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, Islamist fundamentalists are enforcing strict practices. Pamphlets are circulating on university campuses warning girls to cover up; the owners of liquor stores and music shops have been told to shut down. Iraqis worry their social freedoms are disappearing.

Steve Inskeep and Linda Wertheimer read from listeners' letters. This week, many people wrote in about coverage of 20-somethings who still live at home and about Spanish speakers who live in the United States.

In the early 1980s, commentator Alexs Pate worked for a company called City Venture Corporation, which pooled big companies' resources to tackle inner-city poverty. It failed. Now, Pate says, it's time to try again to involve corporate America in the inner city. Pate is the author of the novel Amistad and is an assistant professor in African American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Retired teacher and USA Weekend reader Nancy Yucius believes in living life so as to have no regrets. It's a lesson she learned from her mother and one Yucius is holding on to even more now that she is battling colon cancer.

Michele Norris talks to Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) about the compromise amendment he hammered out with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Levin is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Commentator Justin Catanoso's Italian relatives passed along some unusual family update a few years ago: His grandfather's late cousin was under consideration for sainthood by the Catholic Church. This Sunday, in Pope Benedict's first canonization ceremony Father Gaetano Catanoso will become a saint.

NPR's May Louise Kelly talks with journalist Dalia Hatuqa about her friend and colleague Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while reporting in occupied West Bank for Al Jazeera.