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For those of you keeping track of the headlines detailing sexual assault and hazing at frat houses, it may come as no surprise that fraternities have a dark side. Caitlin Flanagan, a writer at The Atlantic, spent a year investigating Greek houses and discovered that "the dark power of fraternities" is not just a power over pledges and partygoers, but one held over universities as well.

"Fraternities are now mightier than the colleges and universities that host them," she writes. Alumni do tend to give generously to their alma maters, yes, but it's more than that. The American college system is slave to its need for a continual flow of students, Flanagan says. How else to convince underprepared, soon-to-be-loan-ridden students to attend than by marketing the experience as a major party? Colleges compete for these students with perks, frats and all their glory among them.

Flanagan's piece looks deeper into the tragic and unsavory practices rampant in Greek houses, and the ways in which they protect themselves when serious problems arise.

Scientists have gotten close to pinning down the origin of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, a dangerous respiratory disease that emerged in Saudi Arabia 17 months ago.

It turns out the MERS virus has been circulating in Arabian camels for more than two decades, scientists report in a study published Tuesday.

Shots - Health News

Middle East Coronavirus Called 'Threat To The Entire World'

Ugandan President Yoweri Musaveni signed a controversial bill Monday that makes gay sex punishable by terms of up to life in prison, and accused Western groups of "coming into our schools and recruiting young children into homosexuality and lesbianism."

NPR's Gregory Warner reported on the story for our Newscast unit. Here's what he said:

"The move was framed here as a rebuff to the West, seen as less influential as Uganda discovers oil wealth and increases its trade with China. But the bill was written after a conference in Uganda organized by some American evangelicals who argued that homosexuality was the greatest threat to the cohesion of the African family."

Actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah was born in Britain to immigrant parents from Grenada. His dad worked as a factory worker and his mother worked three jobs to send him to private school in the hope he would become a lawyer. "She wanted me to contribute to the upliftment of my community," he tells NPR's Michel Martin.

In 2003, he became the first black Briton to stage a play in London's prestigious West End theater district with his award-winning piece "Elmina's Kitchen." The play tackled gun crime, displacement and racism in East London.

Kwei-Armah says the reaction to his work brought his mother around. "Someone came up to her and started speaking about the effect that my play had on a piece of government policy," he remembers. "She turned to me and she said 'you know, I wanted you to be a lawyer but this playwriting thing, it will do.'"

Three years ago, he decamped to Baltimore to become artistic director of the city's Center Stage theater. "I found Baltimore to be vivacious. I found the audiences to be intelligent and engaging." He says he never planned to take up the role but, "it just felt like it might be a really fun investigation to put all of my art and all of my ideas into one building, and I have to say, I've been having a great time."