All Things Considered

A mountain-born treasure of American folk music, Doc Watson, died Tuesday in North Carolina at age 89.

His manager said in a statement that Watson died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, after abdominal surgery last week.

Watson was born in Deep Gap, N.C., in the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a three-room house he shared with eight brothers and sisters. He revolutionized not just how people play guitar but the way people around the world think about mountain music.

Watson went blind when he was only about a year old, from an untreated eye infection. He told WHYY's Fresh Air that he was only 11 when his father made him a banjo using the skin of an old dead cat.

Congress is considering legislation allowing the government to search through Internet traffic for early warnings of cyberattacks. The bills are controversial — worries about government surveillance have led to protests online.

The government does have a tool that could calm fears about this kind of legislation — it just doesn't use it.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., took to the Senate floor last week to denounce CISPA — the "Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act," which has already passed the House. That bill, and similar legislation in the Senate, are supposed to target viruses and cyberattacks, but Wyden fears the worst.

A shelf stacked with LPs, a cassette played over and over on a family road trip, a song a parent always sang when vacuuming — these are ingredients of musical memories from childhood.

One of the day's most-discussed stories has to be The New York Times' report headlined "Secret 'Kill List' Proves A Test Of Obama's Principles And Will."

It's a long, detailed look at how the president has "placed himself at the helm of a top secret 'nominations' process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical."

Ashley Dias, 26, is waiting for lungs. She has cystic fibrosis and needs a lung transplant to survive. She's got a tracheostomy tube in her neck so she can only mouth out words.

When doctors come to see Ashley in her hospital room at the Cleveland Clinic, she has only one question. She pulls out a marker and writes in enormous capital letters, as if it's the only thing she's ever wanted a voice to say:

ANY NEWS ON LUNGS

So far, there is no news on lungs. Ashley's still waiting.

Ashley's doctor, Marie Budev, has 124 patients on the waiting list for a lung transplant. The doctor desperately wants all of them to get transplants. But there aren't enough lungs to go around.

Afghans hired to help U.S. forces in Afghanistan say Congress should keep its promise to grant them visas to America. Despite death threats from the Taliban, thousands of Afghans have worked with Americans since the war in Afghanistan began. Most say they wanted to serve their country, but they also hoped to win visas to America. But since 2009, the number of U.S. visas awarded has slowed to a trickle.