Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear was one of the state leaders attending the Governors Association meeting this weekend. Host David Greene talks with the Democrat about the hot topics at this year's gathering in Williamsburg, Va.

Guest host David Greene takes a tour of the largest comic book convention, the giant Comic-Con in Los Angeles.

Transcript

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. Good morning, I'm David Greene.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads for Israel today. This, after leaving Egypt where she met with that country's new Islamist president and also the head of the powerful military council. Secretary Clinton said Egypt needs to continue its transition to a civilian-led democracy. But that message was delivered gently, a sign that Washington sees a long and uncertain transition ahead.

NPR's Peter Kenyon has more from Cairo.

No country has enjoyed more spectacular growth in recent decades than China. But the economy that will one day replace America's as the world's largest also faces a lot of challenges. Guest host David Greene talks to NPR's Frank Langfitt, who was a reporter in China in the '90s and returned to Shanghai for NPR last year.

U.N. investigators visited the site of a mass killing in Syria. Their initial report cites a targeted attack on the village of Tremseh, but have been unable to confirm the death toll. The Syrian government says it was an anti-terrorist operation and no civilians were killed. Guest host David Greene talks to NPR's Deborah Amos.

The singing Babushkas of Buranova have made a name for themselves, first as an Internet sensation and then at the Eurovision competition this year. They saved money from their performances to help their ramshackle village. Guest host David Greene has an update on these hard-working grandmothers.

A small town in southwest German has designated two parking spaces, "men only." They're two of the town's trickiest places to park. The mayor's response, guest host David Greene reports, is that it will attract tourists.

The Greek capital of Athens has suffered from an image problem since the debt crisis began more than two years ago. Media reports often show masked gangs throwing petrol bombs at Parliament or riot police dousing demonstrators with tear gas.

Many tourists are staying away as a result. Tourist arrivals to the city are down by between 20 and 40 percent, industry representatives say.

Forty years ago, the founders of Seattle's Intiman Theater envisioned a company devoted to Western classics: Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and the like. But over the decades, Intiman also earned national recognition as an incubator of new work.

In 1991, it premiered The Kentucky Cycle, which went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. A decade later, it produced the first workshops of the Tony Award-winning musical The Light in the Piazza.

Before most readers in China learned of Romeo and Juliet, they were captivated by a love triangle between a boy and his two female cousins.

It's the "single most famous love triangle in Chinese literary history," says author Pauline A. Chen, who's written the latest retelling of the tale of Jia Baoyu and his cousins Lin Daiyu and Xue Baochai. The three characters form the central love story of the Chinese novel Hong Lou Meng, often translated as Dream of the Red Chamber in English.