This week D.C. Court of Appeals agreed with the White House that the health care law does not violate the Constitution. The court's senior judge, a respected conservative voice, wrote the majority opinion. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Jacki Lyden speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about this story and others from the past week.

Today marks the first day that Penn State's football team played a game without legendary head coach Joe Paterno since 1950. The long-time coach was fired earlier this week as a result of a university scandal involving Paterno's former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky who has been charged with 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. NPR's Jeff Brady reports from Penn State on student and fan reaction after a bitter loss to 19th ranked Nebraska.

The Arab League voted today to suspend Syria's membership over its failure to stop a violent crackdown on anti-regime protesters. The move will increase the international pressure on President Bashar Assad.

The League said the suspension will remain in place until the Syrian government implements an Arab deal to end the violence, and called for sanctions and transition talks with the opposition.

There's no mistaking the protagonist of "Be Brave," a song from the new My Brightest Diamond album, All Things Will Unwind. Shara Worden, the group's classically trained singer, songwriter, and main creative force, makes it clear in the refrain: "Shara, now get to work/Shara, this is going to hurt."

The stands were blue at Penn State University this afternoon, as students and fans of the school's football team showed their symbolic support for victims of child sexual abuse.

Most of the more than 107,000 spectators at the game against Nebraska were wearing blue and many gave money to organizations that battle sexual abuse — their way of responding to the allegations that a former assistant football coach at the school abused young boys for more than a decade, sometimes on campus.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, host: This WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer. In Venezuela, officials have announced a dramatic end to the high-profile kidnapping of Major League Baseball catcher Wilson Ramos. Police commandos swooped in on a remote mountainous hideaway and rescued him. This was the sound at the Ramos home in Valencia, Valenzuela, when he returned there late last night.

(SOUNDBITE OF SIREN AND CHEERING)

NPR's Don Gonyea normally reports on politics, but he finds other stories along the way, like this one about a touring bluegrass band from the Czech Republic.

The first time I heard Druha Trava play was April 2009. I was covering President Obama's trip to the Europe. There was a big outdoor speech in Prague, and the band was playing Czech versions of Bob Dylan songs.

I did a short radio postcard story back then, figuring it was the kind of experience that every music fan knows: You stumble upon a great band somewhere and never see them again.

The Republican presidential candidates gather Saturday night in Spartanburg, S.C., to debate foreign policy and national security, the first in nearly a dozen such events to have that focus. NPR's senior Washington editor Ron Elving looks ahead to the event with guest host Linda Wertheimer.