On Monday, Vladimir Putin will again become president of Russia. When he is inaugurated in the Kremlin, it will be for a third term, even though the Russian constitution limits presidents to two four-year terms.

The restriction, however, is for two consecutive terms. It doesn't rule out a third term if someone else holds the presidency in the interim. That's exactly what Dmitri Medvedev did. He was elected president after Putin, but declined a run for a second term.

This political swap succeeded, but Putin will be leading a different Russia after his re-inauguration.

President Obama says the country has come too far in the last four years to change course now. He kicked off his re-election campaign Saturday with a pair of high-profile rallies in two pivotal states, Ohio and Virginia.

Obama acknowledged the economic recovery still has a long way to go. Yet he argued his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, would move the country backward, not forward.

Unsatisfied With Unemployment

Former Denver Bronco's tight end Nate Jackson posted an open letter on Buzzfeed.com this week to Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III, the NFL's top two draft picks this year.

It begins, "You have been mentioned in the same breath for the last several months. But once you get drafted and shake hands with Darth Vader, your lives will diverge and you will be immersed fully in the identity of your new employers."

The story doesn't get much better, Jackson continues.

The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four other men charged with helping launch those attacks ended their first day in a military commission arraignment by saying they would wait to enter their pleas.

The day was contentious. The men refused to answer routine questions from Judge James Pohl, refused to participate in the proceedings, and even refused to listen to the simultaneous Arabic translation of what was going on all around them.

President Obama held a pair of campaign rallies today, his first big public events of the 2012 election. He targeted two key battleground states: Ohio and Virginia. NPR's Scott Horsley is traveling with the president and joins weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz to talk about the events.

It wasn't a wild scene in the Guantanamo Bay courtroom where the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four others were being arraigned on Saturday, but it was certainly in disarray.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the rest of the defendants repeatedly refused to answer the judge's questions and employed other distractions to bog down the proceedings, as the AP reports.

The case of Chen Guancheng, the blind Chinese dissident who sought refuge at the U.S. embassy in Beijing last week, could soon be resolved.

Chen was released into Chinese custody earlier this week after six days at the embassy. He's now recovering at a Beijing hospital from injuries he suffered during his escape from house arrest.

Lawyers for Jerry Sandusky have filed papers that suggest there may be more people claiming he sexually abused them than originally thought, as NPR's Joel Rose tells our Newscast Desk:

The former Penn State assistant football coach is charged with more than 50 counts of sexual abuse involving 10 boys identified only as victims 1 through 10.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed legislation late Friday that blocks state funds — in most cases — from reaching groups that provide abortions. As The Arizona Republic reports:

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has left China after a diplomatic roller coaster of a trip fraught with human drama. Now, this revolved around the fate of Chen Guangcheng, the blind dissident who is still in a Beijing hospital. But last night, China indicated that it would let Mr. Chen apply for permission to study overseas, hinting at a way out of the crisis that had overshadowed the summit Secretary Clinton had gone to China to attend. Our Beijing correspondent Louisa Lim joins us. Louisa, thanks for being with us.