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Friday, the MLB debuted its new playoff format: Two wild-card teams from each league played in a high-stakes, single-shot game to advance to the full playoffs. The Baltimore Orioles defeated the Texas Rangers, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Atlanta Braves. NPR's Tom Goldman speaks with host Scott Simon about those games and the Rockets' Royce White, who plays in the NBA with a generalized anxiety disorder.

The Swapper, a sci-fi puzzle video game, has you, and your clones, trying to find out what happened to a derelict space station. You start seeing those clones as more than just drones. Are they me? Are they alive? What happens when they disappear? Or when they die?

Gov. Sam Brownback plans to get rid of Kansas' income tax and cut the size of state government. Some lawmakers say it's a great experiment that will show that lower tax rates and streamlined bureaucracy can stimulate growth; others are concerned about overreaching.

The shipwreck off the Italian coast has drawn attention to the thousands of asylum-seekers who try to enter Europe by boat each year. The case has led to calls for a Mediterranean-wide search and rescue mission to intercept boats carrying migrants.

An American rock musician born in Freeport on Long Island, N.Y., Lou Reed epitomized New York City's artistic underbelly in the 1970s, with his songs about hookers and junkies. Reed was 71.

Determining the day on which the U.S. government might default is tricky. The Bipartisan Policy Center says the last eight days of October is a critical period because of all the payments due that week. The potential for a credit default is already causing problems for big financial firms that use U.S. Treasurys as collateral.

Many veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking advantage of GI benefits to pay for higher education. But most are looking at large state schools or for-profit and online universities. Now, a new scholarship program in California focuses on veterans whose experiences and talents are better suited for smaller private liberal arts colleges.

Lucas Mann's Class A combines baseball and sociology in this chronicle of a farm team from a fading Iowa factory town. Reviewer Heller McAlpin says Mann "uses the full tool kit of literary nonfiction" in a book that "encompasses nostalgia, hope and failure."

The Summer Olympics are officially underway following yesterday's opening ceremony in Tokyo, a year after they were originally scheduled. COVID restrictions mean fans can't watch events in-person.

NPR's Audie Cornish talks with Kirk Lepine, Plaquemines Parish president, about the impact of Hurricane Ida in his parish.