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Michele Norris says she's had enough of chatty dolls, singing globes and anything else with a talking microchip. All those annoying playthings make her wonder: Why are toys so loud?

Melissa Block and Michele Norris read from listeners' letters and e-mails. Among this week's topics: our series on legal immigration, David Schaper's story on the good side of urban sprawl, and Michele Norris's piece about the 25th anniversary of the death of Bob Marley.

Experts confirm that a cluster of trees found by a scientist hiking near Pine Mountain, Ga., are in fact American chestnut trees. But researchers say they have no idea how the trees escaped a blight in the early 1900s, which experts thought had wiped out the entire U.S. population of the trees.

As a child, Jane Hamill thought Barbie was the ultimate in cool. Now a fashion designer in Chicago, Hamill realizes her belief in a doll was a belief in her own skills, creativity and ability to succeed.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee decides not to recommend approval of a new drug for children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The committee was considering modafinil, a drug used to treat narcolepsy. This comes against a backdrop of increased safety concerns about drugs already used to treat ADHD.

Ninety percent of Netflix customers get their DVDs within a day of shipping. But a move by Netflix to thwart its own seamless system to save money on high-volume customers has landed the rental firm in court.

Here's a way to travel, without suffering the high prices of fuel these days: Read one of Alan Cheuse's summer reading book picks. One of them is bound to move you someplace beyond your beach chair.

The life of Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei has inspired a musical work. "The Starry Messenger," composed by Glenn McClure, debuts Saturday night in upstate New York. The project was inspired by Dava Sobel's book Galileo's Daughter.

In Florida, Hazel Haley has been teaching English at Lakeland High School since 1939. She's been teaching in the same classroom since 1952! She's retiring this year and the community is grateful for her long service. In some cases, she's taught three generations of the same family. Robin Sussingham of member station WUSF reports.

Federal agents in Milford Township, Mich., a western Detroit suburb, are digging up a horse farm searching for any sign of the remains of former union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Hoffa disappeared in 1975. The farm is known as a place where organized-crime figures used to hang out.