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From directors to designers, almost everyone in beauty pageants turns a profit. But not most of the contestants. Many can wind up spending thousands of dollars for entrance fees, the perfect gown and top-notch coaching. For most contestants, it's an expensive hobby with little or no financial reward.

The fight over U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice's potential nomination for secretary of state has left Sen. John Kerry in an odd spot because he could be up for the Cabinet post, too. Once a vocal defender of Rice, Kerry has kept quiet lately.

As the debate over the political calculations behind President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage continue, Host Scott Simon checks in with acclaimed novelist and screenwriter Armistead Maupin to talk about this as a cultural moment.

It's known as the quiet period — the SEC-mandated time before an initial public offering when a company's top officials have to avoid anything close to hype. And with Facebook's IPO expected next week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues are pretty much staying mum.

Ashley Dias needs lungs. So do lots of other patients. Scarcity is a problem with organ transplants, and, unlike other scarce resources, organs can't be bought or sold. Here's how doctors decide who gets to be at the top of the waiting list.

Pundits, reporters and campaigns have put a lot of energy into setting expectations for the candidates' performances. But playing the expectations game doesn't always land you on top or, for that matter, anywhere at all.

Astronomers want increasingly large telescopes to peer into the depths of space. To build a solid telescope mirror nearly 30 feet across, you need an oven that heats to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit and spins around like a top.

The 69 new laws limiting reproductive rights in 2011 were one short of the record set in 1999. And action is already heating up for 2012, with several states looking at "personhood" ballot amendments, which define life as beginning at fertilization.

The public relations problem for private equity capitalists at firms such as Bain, KKR and Blackstone is that they are the agents of the creative-destruction part of capitalism. They aim to take over underperforming firms and operate them more efficiently. In that process, people do lose their jobs.

A decade ago, Botswana was facing a national crisis as AIDS appeared on the verge of decimating the country's adult population. Now, the country provides free, life-saving AIDS drugs to almost all of its citizens who need them.