NPR News

Pope Benedict XVI gives an open-air Mass in Mexico Sunday and, on his way there, will bless the Christ the King monument, an important symbol of Mexican Catholicism.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has undergone a heart transplant in a hospital near Washington. Cheney, 71, was on the waiting list for a heart for 20 months, which is longer than the average wait time in the Washington area. His prognosis remains uncertain.

President Obama is in South Korea Sunday to take part in a multilateral conference aimed at curbing nuclear proliferation. He arrives in South Korea at a time of considerable tension. North Korea is threatening to carry out a long-range rocket launch in April, an action the U.S. has warned it should not take.

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SUSAN STAMBERG, HOST:

In NCAA men's basketball, the Louisville Cardinals and Ohio State Buckeyes have qualified for the Final Four. Later today, two more teams will join them after Kentucky plays Baylor and Kansas faces North Carolina. With so much basketball peppered with reversals and upsets, it's hard to deny the madness of March. But, as NPR's Mike Pesca reports, most coaches try desperately to keep it at bay.

Monday, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments on the Obama administration's health care law. The justices have set aside six hours to debate whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. NPR's Ari Shapiro joins guest host Susan Stamberg to discuss what's going to happen over the next few days.

Not one second of the six hours of arguments on the health care law will be either seen or heard in real time by anyone not at the Supreme Court. The nation's highest court has turned down requests to allow live broadcasts of this week's historic proceedings.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney underwent a heart transplant Saturday, after waiting 20 months for a donor.

The preparations for Pope Benedict XVI's three-day visit to Cuba have produced some unusual sights and sounds there lately.

A church van with a megaphone drove around one Havana neighborhood recently, calling Cubans out of their homes to a gathering in a nearby park, with the message that God loves them.

The number of churchgoing Catholics on the island is growing again, but it remains less than 10 percent, and the call to gather was a rare exception to the Communist government's ban on public acts of religious proselytism.

A few days ago, a plane carrying members of the 182nd Infantry Regiment touched down in Indiana. The 303 soldiers who were on board are members of an Army National Guard unit that has just finished a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan.

The soldiers, dressed in their combat uniforms and carrying their weapons, bounded down the stairs from the plane. They shook the hands of the generals who had gathered there to welcome them home. It was the middle of the night and raining, but none of them seemed to mind. It had been a long trip and a long year.