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Forty years ago, New York enacted tough laws in response to a wave of drug-related crime. They became known as the Rockefeller drug laws, and they set the standard for states looking to get tough on crime. But a new debate is under way over the effectiveness of such strict sentencing laws.

Melissa Block talks with Vali Nasr about Iran's president-elect, Hassan Rowhani. Nasr, the dean of the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, has closely followed Rowhani's career. In this week's Foreign Policy he calls the election outcome a "game-changer" for U.S.-Iran relations.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested for comparison against a national database. The decision raises major questions about how law enforcement and criminal justice processes will change.

Iranians elected Hasan Rowhani, a reformist-backed cleric, as president — a surprise to many who expected an ultraconservative candidate to win. Former NPR foreign correspondent Mike Shuster provides analysis, and responds to opinion pieces about what has changed after the election.

From the AIDS movement to the Sept. 11 attacks to Occupy Wall Street, NPR's Margot Adler has covered important issues facing New York City for more than three decades. As part of TOTN's "Looking Ahead" series, Adler reflects on her years in the business and the future of New York City.

The anti-government protests taking place across Turkey have not bypassed Antakya, down near the Syrian border. Nightly marches and demonstrations take place in the majority Alawite part of the city, but the protesters are a mix of minority Alawites and majority Sunni Muslims. In addition to the common complaints that Prime Minister Erdogan is growing more autocratic, some are convinced that the government's policies are pulling Turkey into the Syrian crisis and they fear more violence like the bomb attacks that killed at least 51 people in a border town last month.

An enterprising carpenter and a creative puppeteer teamed up on a do-it-yourself project to build a mechanical hand for a little boy. They created an inexpensive prosthetic and published their designs on the Internet. So far, over 100 children have been outfitted.

The world's premier commercial and military aviation and space trade fair is underway. The Paris Air Show is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. The competition between European and U.S. plane makers Airbus and Boeing is a staple of the show.

Authorities in New Zealand have been locking up some criminals in their homes rather than jail. A local newspaper reports one young man, after serving 10 months of his 11 month sentence, called the police to say he's "sick of playing Xbox games." And if they didn't pick him up, he would violate his detention.

The movement started last week against a hike in the price of public transportation, but it has snowballed into something larger. In the beginning, there were only a few thousand people participating — now there are tens of thousands of Brazilians making their voices heard.