A 71-year-old amnesiac in Germany has become well known in medical circles there. Even though the patient has lost nearly all memory of his past and has difficulty planning anything in the present or for the future, new research shows the former concert cellist is still able to learn new music. Audie Cornish speaks with Dr. Carsten Finke, a neurologist at The Charite university hospital in Berlin, about the unique patient.

The drug war in Mexico is taking a terrible toll in Central America. The region now has the highest homicide rate in the world, according to a new UN report, as traffickers move more and more U.S.-bound cocaine through Central America's struggling, weak states. Nick Miroff reports with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

When FBI agents arrive at the scene of a shooting or a terrorist attack, there's often someone else standing in the background. It's a representative from the FBI's Office for Victim Assistance, there to help people suffering in the aftermath of a disaster.

The planning for those unfortunate days starts here, in a windowless conference room in the J. Edgar Hoover FBI building, where seven serious-looking people are sitting around a table.

The typical college student today isn't "typical" anymore: Only 1 in 4 lives on campus and studies full time.

But part-timers and commuter students are much less likely to finish — most part-time students are still without a degree or a certificate after eight years. Higher education is desperately looking for strategies that improve those numbers. There might be one in Tennessee.

In this presidential cycle, as in the last, there is no question which Republican candidate has the most ardent supporters: Ron Paul, the 76-year-old Texas congressman whose brand of libertarianism often puts him at odds with all of his rivals. But with less than seven weeks to go for the nation's first primary, there are signs that Paul could surprise people.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is sitting pretty in New Hampshire, where he has been the front-runner all year, so whoever comes in second in the Granite State isn't doing too shabbily.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

With more on this story and the rest of the week's news, we're joined now by Doyle McManus. He's the Washington columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and he has graciously agreed to stand in for our regular news analyst, James Fallows. Doyle, thanks so much for being with us.

DOYLE MCMANUS: Thank you for having me.

Pakistan says 25 of its soldiers were killed in a NATO helicopter attack on a checkpoint at the Afghan border. NATO says it is investigating what happened. Host Rachel Martin talks with NPR's Quil Lawrence about the incident, which has further exacerbated U.S.-Pakistan tensions.

Andrew Robinson was injured by a roadside bomb during his second deployment to Iraq. Now a quadriplegic, he says he is learning how to use his limited mobility and is proud of having protected his fellow soldiers. He is especially motivated because his wife is expecting twins next month.

NASA launched the Mars Science Laboratory from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Saturday. The MSL is five times heavier than the rovers currently on Mars and has twice as many scientific instruments. It will take nine months for the spacecraft to reach the Red Planet, and there's plenty of things for it to do before then.