By: Tiffany Mullon

Photo by Gerardo Mora/Getty Images

Mitt Romney pledged that he would swiftly reform the nation's immigration system before a group of Latino elected officials Thursday, but sidestepped the question of whether he would end President Obama's new policy to suspend the deportation of some young undocumented immigrants.

In a speech before the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee said: "Some people have asked if I will let stand the president's executive action. The answer is that I will put in place my own long-term solution that will replace and supersede the president's temporary measure. As president, I won't settle for a stop-gap measure.... I will address the problem of illegal immigration in a civil but resolute manner."

By: Jenny Marder

Consider these facts from Carl Zimmer's book, "A Planet of Viruses": If you put all the viruses in the ocean on a scale, they would equal the weight of 75 million blue whales. And if you lined up all those viruses end to end, "they would stretch out past the nearest 60 galaxies."

In 17th century England, Zimmer writes, cures for the rhinovirus, or the common cold, included a blend of gunpowder and eggs and fried cow dung and suet. Today, he says, doctors have little more to offer a person that's sick with a cold.

Zimmer is a contributing editor at Discover, an author of 12 books on science and a regular contributor to the New York Times. (He also has a tapeworm named after him.) We spoke with him recently about his latest book, in which he uncovers the bizarre world of viruses living in the soil, in caves underground and in our own bodies -- while addressing the fundamental questions driving virologists. Why, for example, has it been so hard to find a penicillin for viruses? Which virus will become the next great pandemic? Will scientists ever develop a cure for the common cold? And should they?

By: Meena Ganesan

Michael Bonfigli / The Christian Science Monitor

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said at a Washington breakfast Thursday that he wants to see the Republican Party talk about being pro-legal immigration, and brushed off any speculation of a possible vice presidential vet.

While "vastly outrageous things" have been said on the issue, Rubio said the party is not anti-immigration. His message: immigration is good for America.

The Cuban American discussed the GOP's efforts to convince Hispanic voters that Mitt Romney is the better choice on the economy.

He also said immigration policy affects, and is directly linked to, the agricultural, high-tech and service economies.

"I think a misconception is that Hispanics wake up in the morning and think about immigration," Rubio told reporters at an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

By: Paul Solman

Thursday marks the penultimate installment of our extended profile of economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman here on Making Sen$e. The topic: What happened in the great crash of '08? Are we in danger of forgetting the lessons learned and getting ourselves into yet another financial disaster? (Transcript below.)

Our response to Krugman comes from Russ Roberts, professor of economics at George Mason University and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He hosts a weekly podcast EconTalk and created the Keynes-Hayek rap videos with John Papola (which debuted here on Making Sen$e, and now have over 5 million views on YouTube). He blogs with Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek. His latest book is The Price of Everything: A Parable of Possibility and Prosperity. He has written an extended essay on the financial crisis: "Gambling With Other People's Money: How Perverted Incentives Caused the Financial Crisis."

By: Cat Wise

Video has long been a powerful medium for organizations that want to create awareness and spur action on behalf of various causes around the world -- but how people can watch those videos is changing.

The television ads, telethons and 30-second public service announcements so popular in the past -- and still in some use today -- are making way for YouTube, Vimeo and other web-based video services that users hope will spread their message to an ever-growing online audience.

By: Kelly Chen

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Hundreds of empty school desks crowded the National Mall Wednesday as part of an awareness campaign that estimates 857 students drop out of high school every hour of a school day.

College Board, the not-for-profit education services organization, used the installation to send a message to make education reform a priority this election year. The "Don't Forget Ed" campaign comes at a time when presidential hopefuls have largely focused on the economy and, most recently, immigration.

While graduation rates are improving overall, significant hurdles remain. Many states are adopting new policies to better keep students in school, but certain states such as Nevada, where unemployment rates are high, are struggling to keep up with the positive trend.

By: Phil Galewitz and Kaiser Health News

Medical assistant Ann Valdez gives Christian Casteneda, 12, a physical at a community health center in Aurora, Colo. The clinic has received some 6,000 more Medicaid eligable patients since the health care reform law was passed in 2010. Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

The future of the nation's largest health insurance program -- Medicaid -- hangs in the balance of the Supreme Court's decision on the 2010 health law.

The state-federal program which covers 60 million poor and disabled people would be greatly expanded under the health law, adding 17 million more people starting in 2014.

But if the entire law is struck down, states for the first time since 2009 would be free to tighten eligibility and make it more difficult for people to apply. The law had barred such changes.

And under another scenario -- if the justices declare unconstitutional just the law's expansion of Medicaid -- the entire program enacted in 1965 as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society agenda could be threatened, health experts say. Twenty-six states had challenged the expansion, arguing it was "unduly coercive" because they would lose all of their federal Medicaid funding if they refused to expand the program.

"Depending on how sweeping and broadly written the decision is, it could be the entire Medicaid program has been unconstitutional since 1965, but we didn't know it," said Sara Rosenbaum, a health policy professor at George Washington University.

By: Beth Summers

Partnering with PBS NewsHour, SCOTUSblog is offering live coverage of today's decisions. The court is expected to issue opinions in argued cases at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Once you see the Live Blog window, we ask that you do not refresh your browser. Updates will appear without the need for refreshing.

By: Christina Bellantoni and Terence Burlij

Mitt Romney campaigns in Frankenmuth, Michigan Tuesday. Photo by: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

For Mitt Romney, the improving jobs picture in some battleground states led by Republican governors has made it a bit tougher to label President Obama's economic record a failure.

And it seems that the Romney campaign has even gone so far as to ask one state executive to downplay job gains in his state, reports Bloomberg's Michael C. Bender.

Here are the top two graphs from Bender's piece:

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign asked Florida Governor Rick Scott to tone down his statements heralding improvements in the state's economy because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee's message that the nation is suffering under President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state's jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to the people, who asked not to be named.

By: Judy Woodruff

When I interviewed the senior senator from Arizona last week, I was struck again by how much he still cares about getting money out of politics. So much so, I decided to highlight what he said - again.

For all the attention Sen. McCain has won over the years, first for his bravery as a Vietnam POW, later for his maverick Republican ways, and most recently for his controversial pick of Sarah Palin to be his 2008 vice presidential running mate, it's been his espousal of campaign finance reform that has the potential to transform American politics.

So far, the emphasis has to be on "potential," because most of the effects of the McCain-Feingold reform law, passed in 2002, have been undermined by congressional naysayers and an activist Supreme Court majority, powerful forces bent on maximizing the ability of individuals and corporations to spend as much money as they wish to effect change in Washington. Today, money may be the single most distinctive and influential agent in our political system. It doesn't always determine the outcome, but it forces the players to take positions that shape future votes they cast.