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He started at the Air Force's historical records agency down in Alabama, but the search ballooned wildly from there, into the National Archives, and then into interviews with surviving airmen from the unit. And then it continued onto these missions that he began making at least once a year to Palau, with a backpack full of gear, which over time became increasingly complex technology that he would use to try to find the airplane, including magnetometers and infrared film that he believed he might be able to use to see through the water in the channels of the islands. So he would strap himself into the open doorway of a Cessna and have a pilot fly him over these channels and he'd be hanging out, you know, almost parallel to the surface of the water.

But the problem was all of the accounts of what happened to this airplane were different. The stories that family members heard were different from the official story that they heard, which (was) also different from the stories that Palauan tribal elders who had observed the crash heard, and so none of it added up, and it was very hard to even have a sense of where he should be looking.

On the moment when, after a decade of searching, Scannon and his team found what they believed to be the rest of the plane

It was a moment of great joy and also great sorrow ... I've seen footage of the day that that plane was found, and you can see both those emotions so clearly on the faces. There's this sort of ashen-faced horror at having found the wreckage of at least part of this aircraft. And yet there was also this sense that after having spent the first decade of this process searching and searching, wondering, that they had finally come to a point of some clarity about at least where most of the plane and many of the men wound up.

On why the son of one of the airmen traveled to Palau to dive down and see the plane himself

He told me that when he went down to the plane he still wasn't sure whether his father was on it. Like so many families, he had grown up wondering if his father had perhaps found some way to get off the plane and survive. So he got to the dive site and he made his dive down and he saw the waist-gun door — this huge yawning opening where the 50-caliber machine gun sticks out. And he reached out and he touched the plane, and he held on, and he had a conversation with his father for the first time ever, feeling that perhaps his father was there — although he still had no way to know for sure.

Read an excerpt of Vanished

Steve Lickteig's life as he knew it was a lie. Lickteig thought he was the adopted son of a former World War II vet and his wife. Life was simple: They ran a farm in Kansas, went to mass at the local Catholic church and raised Steve and their eight biological children.

Lickteig wondered who his real parents were and thought he'd set out to find them someday. Then, when he turned 18, two of his best friends told him the truth: His adopted parents were actually his biological grandparents. The woman who he knew as his older sister was actually his mother.

Decades after that revelation, Lickteig turned the camera on his own family to try to understand how a secret like this could be kept for so long. Lickteig is the senior producer for NPR's Weekend All Things Considered. His film is called Open Secret and it premieres in the U.S. Sunday night on Al Jazeera America. He joins NPR's Rachel Martin to discuss how his relationship with his family changed after he discovered their secret.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last came to the U.S. in 2011 as American troops were pulling out of his country. But with violence again on the rise in Iraq, there's much at stake as he prepares to sit down with President Obama at the White House on Friday.

Here's a primer:

There's been a wave of attacks by al-Qaida-linked Sunni militants against the majority Shiite population. Casualty levels aren't as high as they were in 2007 at the height of the country's civil war, but they threaten to reignite a repeat of that sectarian bloodletting. At least 5,000 people have been killed this year, according to counts by Agence France-Presse and the United Nations.

The violence is driving the discussion. Maliki says this is why the United States needs to help him take on a common enemy — al-Qaida — by selling more sophisticated weapons to Iraq, including military helicopters and jets.

Iraq has made a down payment for F-16s (which usually have to come with American trainers). Maliki outlined the argument in a column Tuesday in The New York Times.

And in a speech Thursday at the U.S. Institute of Peace, he said, "We will defeat the terrorists through our local efforts and our partnership with the United States."

The U.S. withdrew from Iraq two years ago in part because Maliki would not agree to grant immunity from Iraqi law to American soldiers stationed there. At the time, many Iraqis were fed up with civilian casualties and blamed the U.S. forces. Now Maliki is asking for U.S. muscle but specifying that he is not requesting troops, just equipment.

Still, the requests raise concerns about just what he'll do with more firepower. Maliki has won two elections by riding the support of the majority Shiites, and he is fiercely sectarian — in part because Shiites suffered badly under Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni rule.

Senators Call For Maliki To Share Power

Maliki has jailed Sunni politicians, and the Sunni vice president fled the country when he faced murder charges that eventually led to a conviction in absentia and a death sentence.

Several U.S. senators wrote an open letter to Obama on Tuesday saying that U.S. support should be contingent on Maliki's willingness to shed his authoritarian tendencies and share power with Sunnis.

The Senate letter also urges Obama to push for assurances that next year's Iraqi elections will be fair and free. Some speculate that Maliki might ask Obama for tacit American support in his expected bid for a third term.

Retired Gen. David Petraeus, who oversaw the troop surge in Iraq in 2007 and 2008, paints a picture of Maliki as "courageous" and cooperative — to a point — in a piece on ForeignPolicy.com. Petraeus warns that gains made in Iraq by U.S. troops are in jeopardy unless sectarian tension is reduced.

But the scope of Maliki's visit goes far beyond just Iraq and its relationship with the U.S.

Iraq's Complicated Relations With Iran

Iraq is both an ally and a contentious next-door neighbor to Iran. Many blame Maliki for letting Iran have too much influence in his country. This includes things like allowing Iran to use Iraq's airspace to fly support to President Bashar Assad's regime in Syria.

But Maliki also bristles at Iranian attempts to control him and likes to pit Washington against Tehran, taking counsel from both, seeing who will give him the best deals and hoping to find an independent route between them. In his commentary, he calls the U.S. "our security partner of choice."

And that raises Syria, another regional concern sure to come up at the White House meeting. Maliki is thought to oppose toppling Assad, who is a close Iran ally. And U.S. officials have pressured Maliki to prevent Iran from using Iraqi airspace to fly supplies to Assad. But Iraqis note that they aren't equipped to enforce their airspace. And that, Maliki writes, is why he needs the American fighter jets.

Indonesia, Kompas

There's more fallout over disclosures that the U.S. spied on many of its allies — this time in Indonesia.

The Foreign Ministry on Friday summoned Greg Moriarty, the Australian ambassador to Indonesia, over allegations that Australian diplomatic posts, including the one in Jakarta, were used as part of the U.S. surveillance network.

The disclosures came Thursday in the Sydney Morning Herald, which reported that the diplomatic posts involved included Beijing, Bangkok, Thailand; Hanoi, Vietnam; and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

China also demanded an explanation of the reports.

Australia is part of the "five eyes" alliances, which includes the U.S., Britain, Canada and New Zealand. The five countries have shared sensitive information since World War II.

Last week, there was outrage in Germany following reports that the U.S. National Security Agency had spied on German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany, Deutsche Welle

We'll stay in Germany, which on Friday became the first European country to allow parents to leave the gender field blank on birth certificates. The move effectively creates an intersex option.

The law, which came following a report last year by the German Ethics Council, is intended to ease pressure on parents whose children are born with the characteristics of both sexes.

A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry said the law "is not adequate to fully resolve the complex problems of intersex people."

South Africa, IOL News

The man accused of raping and murdering a 17-year-old girl in a case that shocked the country was sentenced Friday to life terms in prison without parole.

Johannes Kana was found guilty earlier this week of raping and disemboweling Anene Booysen on Feb. 2. She died later at a Cape Town hospital.

Kana was seen with her outside a pub in Bredasdorp, about 130 miles from Cape Town, earlier that day. He admitted during the trial to leaving the pub with Booysen, and hitting and raping her. But he denied killing her.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence against women.

Mexico, El Universal

Finally, a story that will sounds familiar to many Americans: Mexican snack food makers are warning that a tax on junk food passed by the Mexican Congress on Thursday will ultimately hurt consumers.

The Mexican Senate voted Thursday to raise the tax on junk foods from 5 percent to 8 percent.

Bruno Lemon Celorio of the snack manufacturers association told El Universal the move, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2014, would result in a price rise of between 8 percent and 10 percent.

Nearly a third of all Mexicans are obese, putting the country atop the list of overweight nations.