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It's the stuff of nightmares, or science fiction: a parasite that wants to get inside an animal's mouth, where it attacks — and replaces — the tongue. That's the incredibly specific, terribly icky job of the tongue-eating louse.

Luckily for humans, the isopod doesn't affect people. But the Atlantic croaker and other fish are less fortunate, as a recent Facebook posting by the Galveston Island State Park in Texas shows.

It officially has been 20 years since Apple announced the upcoming release of one of its most iconic products: the iPod.

A former science teacher who's been blind for 16 years became able to see letters, discern objects' edges — and even play a Maggie Simpson video game — thanks to a visual prosthesis that includes a camera and a brain implant, according to American and Spanish researchers who collaborated on the project.

It's a good day to be a Houston Astros fan — if you can handle a little controversy.

The Astros are going to the World Series later this month, after besting the Boston Red Sox on Friday. This will mark the Astros' third appearance in the World Series in 5 years. They won the whole shebang in 2017 when they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, but that win has since been mired in controversy.

Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, and new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

Sheriff's deputies arrested Terry Turner on a warrant accusing him of murdering Adil Dghoughi outside of Turner's house in Martindale, Texas. Turner reportedly shot Dghoughi, a native of Morocco who was not armed, through the window of Dghoughi's car.

Kimberly Grice needed a walker during her final month of pregnancy just to get down the hall of her home near Myrtle Beach, S.C., to a freshly painted, lavender nursery.

The 36-year-old struggled to hang up tiny clothes or organize a changing table. She'd been hospitalized this summer with COVID-19 and on a ventilator.

She did not get the vaccine fearing it might hurt the baby. Doctors now want pregnant women to know it is safe.

Nick Offerman is best known as Ron Swanson on Parks and Recreation, and is perhaps the most famous actor who also owns a woodshop. He's also a comedian, musician and author.

And in his new book, he's making it known that "outdoorsman" is also on his list of hobbies.

Though he lives in Los Angeles, "I feel a hell of a lot better after I walk in the woods," he tells NPR's Scott Simon on Weekend Edition.

The Border Patrol recorded nearly 1.7 million migrant apprehensions at the Southern border over the past year — the highest number ever, eclipsing the record set more than two decades ago.

But that doesn't mean it's the biggest number of individual migrants who've illegally crossed from Mexico into the U.S. in a single year.

In fact, it's probably not even close.

On his very first day in office, President Biden signed an executive order meant to begin unraveling the systemic barriers that have magnified economic inequality in the United States.

Now months later, as Congress haggles over the size and scope of Biden's proposals to transform the social safety net, advocates for equity are worried that the final product may leave out too many who need help.

One more U.S. soccer match to go for Carli Lloyd.

The popular, 39-year-old veteran of the women's national team will play her final game in a U.S. uniform next Tuesday in Minnesota, in a so-called friendly against South Korea. The two teams played to a scoreless draw Thursday in Kansas City – a crowd of more than 18,000 cheered Lloyd as she came on as second-half substitute.

BEIJING — The window shades are drawn, the air's filled with cigarette smoke and tension. About three dozen people, mostly men, huddle around a table, in silence — all that can be heard is an unmistakable chirp.

It's a cricket fight.

A lot "ales" Congress these days — with members clashing over President Biden's domestic agenda and continued fallout from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

But on Wednesday night, bipartisan cooperation was on full display during the fourth annual Anheuser-Busch Brew Across America Congressional Brewing Competition, where five pairs of lawmakers work with breweries across the country to create new small batch beers and bring them back to Washington, D.C., to find out whose concoction is best.

Lights on? Good. Dysfunctional relationships from the past, expunged or resolved? Very good! Wedding invitations that involve ghost hunting in an abandoned Japanese manor? Ignore, however tempting.

If you hear one new thing today, how about making it the sound of wind on Mars?

Two microphones aboard the Perseverance Rover have "recorded nearly five hours of Martian wind gusts, rover wheels crunching over gravel and motors whirring as the spacecraft moves its arm," NASA says.

Last year, band and choir classes were a far cry from normal, with students practicing outside or over Zoom. But with students back in school this fall, many are overjoyed to take part in almost-normal music classes. That includes senior tenor sax player Frank Papetti.

"Oh my God, I'm super excited," he says. "I love playing my instrument," Papetti is a member of the wind ensemble at Westwood High School, about 24 miles south of Boston.

Tiphanie Yanique's Monster in the Middle is an ambitious novel. It's a story about love that sets out to capture both minds and hearts. Like an earnest suitor, it declares its intentions from the start: in the epigraph that laments the challenge of being taken seriously when writing about love and in a prologue that explores the complex nature of romantic love. To varying degrees, it succeeds on both counts.

Walmart is recalling an essential-oil aromatherapy spray after a "rare and dangerous bacteria" that can cause a potentially fatal condition was reported, the Consumer Product Safety Commission says. Officials are investigating four confirmed cases and there have been two deaths, including that of a child, associated with the bacteria, according to the agency.

Oh no. Not again.

Just when COVID surge in the U.S. has begun to decline, another coronavirus variant has immediately cropped up. This time in the U.K.

Known in the media as "delta-plus," this mutant is raising some concern because over the past few weeks, it's begun to spread in several parts of Britain. It now accounts for about 6% of all cases in the U.K.

Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.