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It's been said that to properly understand a magician, you have to get right on stage and watch how the act is done. NPR's Bob Mondello had that chance once with card whiz Ricky Jay — subject of the new film Deceptive Practice — and has a few words about how the showman works.

Ricin is a naturally occurring toxin found in castor beans. You can get sick by eating beans. But purified ricin can be made pretty easily and used for no-good.

The defeat of the measure by a 54-46 vote — six votes shy of the number needed to clear the Senate — marks a major setback for gun-control advocates

President Obama delivered an angry message to lawmakers, who shot down a gun control measure.

The president had put his political weight behind expanded background checks. But if he couldn't get an important win on a popular measure in a Democratic-controlled Senate, what's in store for other parts of his second-term agenda?

The state of Missouri contended that because alcohol naturally dissipates in the bloodstream, each passing moment means valuable evidence is being lost, and so a warrant is never required for a blood draw. In an 8-to-1 vote, the Supreme Court disagreed.

Most people think of Superman as a native of Krypton, or perhaps the rural Kansas village of Smallville. Not so fast, say Clevelanders. The creators of the Man of Steel grew up in the city that steel built, and this year, Cleveland is pulling out all the stops for the superhero's 75th birthday.

Clues are still being sifted — most notably, perhaps, from video that shows a man setting down a bag and leaving the scene. No arrests have been made. Thursday morning, President Obama is at an interfaith service in Boston where the victims will be remembered.

Also: an animated interview with David Foster Wallace; the self-publishing trend; and a spirited defense of Justin Bieber.

Paul Kevin Curtis, the 45-year-old Mississippi man arrested Wednesday in connection with the possibly ricin-tainted envelopes sent to President Obama and at least one senator, has taken to Facebook in recent years to claim he knows of an organ-harvesting scheme. He's also an entertainer.