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The clock is ticking and there are only a few hours left before this round of our Three-Minute Fiction writing contest closes. All stories must be submitted by 11:59 Eastern Time tonight. Our Round 7 judge, Danielle Evans, issued this challenge: One character must come to town and one character must leave town. For the full rules go to npr.org/threeminutefiction.

The clock is ticking and we're one week into round seven of our Three-Minute Fiction writing contest. Author Danielle Evans is our judge this time around. Entries are due at 11:59 p.m. Sunday, September 25.

"The truth of poetry is not the truth of history," according to the new poet laureate of the United States. Philip Levine's work is most famous for an urban perspective that began with a youth spent working in Detroit's automobile factories.

Los Angeles screenwriter Clifford Green contributes to our series "Summer Sounds" with the story of the quiet night on a lonely country lake where he heard nothing but his heartbeat.

Amy Dickinson describes the incident that makes her think of the sound of shovels penetrating hard dirt as part of our series Summer Sounds. Her dad once forced Amy, her sisters and a cousin to dig in the hot summer sun in the fruitless pursuit of saving a crop.

Cultural diplomacy usually comes in the form of a traveling art show or celebrity visit, but this summer the Kennedy Center is engaging in a deeper kind of diplomacy; a fellowship program that provides training for arts managers from around the world.

From the Midwest to the Northeast, a brutal heat wave has pushed temperatures above 100 degrees in many areas this weekend. On Friday, more than 130 million people were living under a heat advisory. But while most people were moaning about the oppressive, humid heat, some were finding fun ways to stay cool.

Neda Ulaby reports that for all that comedy has faced since Sept. 11, reports that irony would fizzle out turned out to be greatly exaggerated. Comedy, like anything else, adapts.

Moneyball stars Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the Oakland A's general manager who used analytics and statistics to stay competitive against other teams with much larger payrolls. Critic David Edelstein says the film, based on the 2003 Michael Lewis book, is "entertaining as a sports-underdog story."

The Newsweek editor looks at how women helped bring about peace in Liberia; how they're changing the state of marriage throughout Asia; and the rise of Christine Lagarde to the top of that notoriously male-dominated institution, the International Monetary Fund.