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Every once in a while we have someone on the show who we can't believe agreed to be on the show. Case in point: Kim Kardashian is a producer, entrepreneur, designer, model, mom, tabloid magazine life support system — and now a star of public radio.

Kardashian is the most famous Kim in pretty much every country in the world ... except North Korea. And if the movie The Interview has taught us anything, it's that making fun of North Korea results in good things for your parent organization. So we'll ask Kardashian three questions about her celebrity rival, Kim Jong Un, who dominates TMZ on the other side of the DMZ.

A movie about high school students dealing with mortality — haven't we been dipping into that well a lot lately? So the surprise was the laughs when Me and Earl and The Dying Girl became the surprise smash at this year's Sundance Film Festival, taking both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize. Here was a film that managed to be at once earnest and flip, capturing teen angst without wallowing in teen drama.

The opening shots introduce us to Greg (Thomas Mann), a dweeby high school senior who's perfected the wisecrack as a substitute for social interaction. A member of no clique, he's on friendly terms with everyone from jocks to goths to geeks because he only half-engages, zooming down a hall, hearing a snatch of conversation like, say, "your test was today?" and offering a bit of snark — "ugh, tests, been there" — without breaking stride.

His one close buddy, Earl (RJ Cyler), he's known forever. They bonded as kids while watching Greg's dad's film collection, and then coming up with punny titles for movie parodies — A Sockwork Orange, Senior-Citizen Kane — they make with household detritus and toys.

But being jokey and making videos does not prepare Greg for news his mother gives him about a classmate with leukemia — Rachel (Olivia Cooke), who'd been talking tests in that school hallway. Greg cringes when he realizes what tests she meant.

Worse, his mom insists that he go and spend time with Rachel, though he barely knows her — and social grace is, let's say, not his strong suit. Rachel lets him hang out, and soon they're bonding, somewhat. The moviemaker in Greg senses that that's cool even as the highschooler in him senses that it's emotionally treacherous.

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Earl (RJ Cyler) is brought into the picture partly to protect Greg from too much pain if Rachel's (Olivia Cooke) illness progresses. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Earl (RJ Cyler) is brought into the picture partly to protect Greg from too much pain if Rachel's (Olivia Cooke) illness progresses.

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Partly to protect himself from too much closeness, and too much pain if Rachel's illness progresses, he brings Earl into their world, and ends up opening himself up more than he intended when Earl mentions their movies, outing him, as it were, as a creative soul in high school.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon — working from a screenplay Jesse Andrews based on his own novel, which was in turn, somewhat autobiographical — has a sure sense of the sort of kid who would use a camera lens as a shield. He also has an engaging way of using camera tricks — weird angles, voice-overs, animation — to get at the hormone-addled inanity that is teenagerdom.

Nowhere more so, perhaps, than when the boys are working on their movies — making their Apocalypse Now parody, say: A Box-of-Tulips, Wow with toy soldiers parachuting into a vacant-lot jungle to rescue a box of origami tulips. In their no-budget-goofball way, these minifilma are genius. Sheer genius. This kid, you figure, is gonna grow up to be quite a storyteller. And in a sense, he did.

President Obama made a rare visit to the U.S. Capitol today to lobby in favor of a bill that would give him the ability to fast-track a trade deal with Pacific-Rim nations.

The visit tells you just how important the bill is to the president's agenda and it also tells you just how contentious the issue is on Capitol Hill. Of course, the big concern from many critics is that the trade deal could send American jobs overseas.

The House is set to vote on whether pass a Trade Promotion Authority (TPP) bill, which the president has said will give him the ability to closeout a deal for a Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The issue is that both Republicans and Democrats are divided on their support and its still unclear whether Obama has the votes he needs in Congress. In fact, the unplanned visit to the Hill was intended to shake a few votes out of his own caucus.

According to the White House pool reporter, as Obama left the meeting with Democrats, he was asked if he had nailed down the support he needed.

"I don't think you ever nail something down around here," Obama said. "It's always moving."

The House is expected to begin voting at around 12:45 p.m. ET. NPR's Marilyn Geewax will be live-tweeting the action. We've embedded her tweets below:

Tweets by @geewaxnpr

A once-important political event, that has seen its influence diminished by pay-to-play allegations, breathed its last breath Friday morning.

State Republicans voted to kill the Iowa Straw Poll in a unanimous vote, reversing themselves from a unanimous vote in January to continue it. But, amid defections by key 2016 presidential candidates and despite pledged reforms, it was no longer able to survive.

"I've said since December that we would only hold a straw poll if the candidates wanted one, and this year that is just not the case," state party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann said in a statement.

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In this August 13, 2011 file photo, voters line up outside the Hilton Coliseum to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll at Iowa State University. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

In this August 13, 2011 file photo, voters line up outside the Hilton Coliseum to vote in the Iowa Straw Poll at Iowa State University.

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Kaufmann, who called the decision "distasteful" to those who "love" the event — it was a major million-dollar fundraiser for the party — hinted that the straw poll's reputation was having a negative influence on Iowa's position as the first presidential nominating contest.

He said the decision was "necessary to strengthen our First in the Nation status and ensure our future nominee has the best chance possible to take back the White House in 2016."

The 36-year old event, which was once an important barometer of support for any presidential hopeful ahead of the first-in-the-nation caucuses, has seen its credibility and influence diminish after disastrous results in 2011 and grumbling long before that about the money campaigns have had to spend on it. Though it was supposed to be an indicator of indicator of grassroots support, it was hardly that. Candidates paid tens of thousands of dollars for the best placement and spent thousands more on giveaways.

This year, candidates decided they had had enough. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and even 2008 caucus winner Mike Huckabee all said they would not attend. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who leads in the polls in the early state, hadn't yet committed as many in the state party hoped he would to give it renewed relevance.

"History will repeat itself if we don't learn from the past," Huckabee wrote in a Des Moines Register op-ed. "It's clear that pitting conservative candidates with limited resources against each other in a non-binding and expensive summer straw poll battle, while allowing billionaire-backed establishment candidates to sit out, will only wound and weaken the conservative candidates who best represent conservative and hard-working Iowans."

An event that once had meaning and came unraveled

For nearly 40 years, the straw poll had proved an important part of the GOP process and had often predicted the winner, or at least influenced the results. In the first straw poll in 1979, George H.W. Bush won the inaugural event and the Iowa caucuses. He would lose the nomination to Ronald Reagan, but gained enough momentum to get the No. 2 slot on the ticket.

"I think the straw poll was important to the caucus process early on," said David Yepsen, a former longtime reporter and columnist with the Des Moines Register. Widely recognized as the dean of Iowa politics, he now directs the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. "I think it played a healthy organizational role. Campaigns had to get up to speed to compete, and that was organizing that paid off on caucus night."

But, Yepsen warned, "It was a victim of its own success. It got too big and really started to wield too much influence."

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Then-Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll in August 2011 but placed last in the caucuses the next January. Charles Dharapak/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

Then-Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann won the Iowa Straw Poll in August 2011 but placed last in the caucuses the next January.

Charles Dharapak/Associated Press

That's exactly what happened four years ago, when Iowa native and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann rode a Tea Party wave to a narrow first place victory in the August straw poll. The Republican's campaign spared no expense (or famous Machine Shed cinnamon rolls) in order to win the symbolic gathering.

Her sweet taste of victory would be short-lived, though. She would finish a disappointing fifth in the caucuses next January, dropping out soon after. It was former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who finished fourth in the straw poll, who would narrowly defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in January. Romney didn't even compete in the event.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had essentially staked his entire political future on the Straw Poll. Badly needing a boost, his campaign had run out of cash and needed to at least come in second to the surging Bachmann. Instead, he finished a distant third, behind Texas Rep. Ron Paul. He ended his campaign the next day.

After the November 2012 elections, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad called for an end to the August event. "I think the straw poll has outlived its usefulness," told the Wall Street Journal. "It has been a great fundraiser for the party but I think its days are over.

But, as Yepsen noted, the straw poll didn't always have such ignominious results. Four years earlier, Romney spent big to win the straw poll, but it was former Huckabee's surprise second-place finish that established him as the insurgent to watch. That January, he would upset Romney to win the caucuses.

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In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson upset the incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush in the straw poll, showing the increased influence of Christian conservatives in the state and in the national GOP. Jeff Davis/Associated Press hide caption

itoggle caption Jeff Davis/Associated Press

In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson upset the incumbent Vice President George H.W. Bush in the straw poll, showing the increased influence of Christian conservatives in the state and in the national GOP.

Jeff Davis/Associated Press

In 1987, evangelical leader Pat Robertson defeated incumbent George H.W. Bush, then the incumbent vice president, at the event. He finished second in Iowa that year, behind then-Kansas Sen. Bob Dole. Robertson's campaign never made it past Iowa, but it established, for the first time, the strength of Christian-conservative voters in Iowa and the national GOP.

In 1995, Dole tied with Texas Sen. Phil Gramm in the straw poll, but he used it as a springboard to win the caucuses again and eventually earn the nomination. He would lose to President Bill Clinton, though, in the general election.

In 2000, then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush overcame a strong challenge from publishing executive Steve Forbes, solidifying his place atop the GOP field.

A fix that came too late

The Iowa Republican Party had tried to salvage the event by trying to decrease the "pay to play" stigma it had earned. A random lottery was to be used to determine prime real estate, instead of going to candidates who could shell out the most. And the the state party would provide state fair-style food instead of letting candidates woo voters with scrumptious treats.

Former Iowa Republican Party Chairman Matt Strawn, who oversaw the infamous 2012 straw poll, defended the event as a useful way to show candidate strength early on this cycle, especially in a GOP field that could top 20 hopefuls.

"In many ways, given all of the national hand wringing over what to do with a field of this size when it comes to the debate stage, one argument would be that it cries out for an August straw poll that winnows the field a bit," he argued before the decision.

Strawn said that while it's an important, but costly moneymaker for the state party every year — bringing in over seven figures normally — it also has a longstanding tradition in a state that's immensely proud of its status on the presidential nominating calendar.

"It's like a political family reunion Iowans look forward to every four or eight years," he said.

In fact, last month GOP leaders from across the state pleaded in a letter to the Des Moines Register to save the "beloved and revered" event.

"The Straw Poll is a political tradition stretching back to 1979," they wrote. "Many of us remember attending as children, or bringing our own children along while we participated in this grassroots event."

A Des Moines Register/Bloomberg survey in May, too, showed more than half of caucusgoers said it was important for a presidential candidate to attend.

As for last cycle, Strawn said the swift fall of Bachmann after the straw poll had more to do with her own campaign's problems.

"I lay a fair amount of blame at the feet of the candidate, who was unable to use her straw poll momentum," he said.

But, with the fate of the storied event now sealed, Yepsen argued that putting it out of its mercy could actually help the state's influence come next year.

"I'm a believer that the purpose of the nomination process is for a party to elect a president," Yepsen said. "The end game is to win a presidential election, not a straw poll. Ending it now strengthens Iowa's position in February, because it's now the main event. The focus ought to be on the caucuses."

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