Arts & Culture

A controversial biography of TV and music impresario Simon Cowell came out on both sides of the Atlantic this week. Cowell showed up at the London launch of the unauthorized biography entitled, Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell.

Sales of previously owned homes are up more than 10 percent from last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. At the same time, the number of homes for sale is at the lowest levels in years. The result, say many real estate firms, is that most of the offers being made these days come with competing bids.

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Now f or Jessica Evers Jones, the anniversary of the LA riots is also a birthday. Jessica entered the world dramatically. On that first day of the riots, her pregnant mother, Elvira Jones, was shot in the stomach outside her home. Elvira was rushed to the hospital and Jessica was delivered by emergency C-section. Surgeons removed a bullet from her elbow. She was famous before she was a week old.

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

NPR's business news starts with impressive earnings for Amazon.

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INSKEEP: Amazon released its first-quarter earnings for 2012, which far exceeded Wall Street expectations. As NPR's Steve Henn reports, that sent Amazon's stock price soaring.

It may have been "inexcusable," as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said this week, but the prostitution scandal that has embroiled the Secret Service in recent weeks should not affect the agency's readiness going forward.

The number of agents involved is relatively small, compared to the size of the agency. And the sunken costs involved in losing trained agents may not be especially noticeable, considering the fact that the presidential detail regularly loses agents due to turnover.