Republicans have pounced on a comment by Newark, New Jersey mayor and Obama re-election surrogate Cory Booker. He called the Obama campaign's attacks on Mitt Romney's time at Bain Capital "nauseating." Host Michel Martin discusses the art of messaging with former presidential speechwriter Mary Kate Cary, and journalism professor Cynthia Tucker.

After hearing a lot about barefoot running, New York Times Phys Ed columnist Gretchen Reynolds decided to try it out for herself. An amateur runner for several decades, Reynolds says she thought the transition would be easy. But almost immediately, she got injured.

Not many classical pianists maintain blogs where they ruminate on everything from eating a terrible bowl of meatballs while on tour with Joshua Bell to seeing Twilight: New Moon (twice) and hearing strains of a Schubert song.

As talks opened in Baghdad today, "diplomats from six world powers offered Iran new proposals Wednesday to ease international concerns about its nuclear program, but appeared to reject Tehran's appeals to ease economic sanctions to help move along talks," The Associated Press reports.

Infections with the bacterium Clostridium difficile hit record numbers in recent years. Now there's evidence the hard-to-treat infections are becoming a problem for children.

The infections often strike the elderly, especially those who've been taking antibiotics that clear out competing bacteria in people's intestines. People sickened by the bug have persistent diarrhea that can, in severe cases, lead to dehydration.

Though there's no doubt about the nominees, presidential primaries are still being held.

And in both Democratic and Republican contests, some voters continue to register their unhappiness with the choices before them.

Thomas Massie won't be sworn in as a member of Congress until next January, but he has already put one of his supporters at the top of his Christmas card list.

Massie won the Republican nomination in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District, just south of Cincinnati, on Tuesday in large part due to the backing of James Ramsey, a 21-year-old college student in Texas.

The first congressional hearing into the scandal involving Secret Service personnel who allegedly cavorted with prostitutes in Colombia last month is set for this morning. As the time for that hearing approaches, a key senator is charging that such "morally repugnant" behavior appears to have been tolerated within the elite agency.