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All this week, NPR is taking a deeper look at the natural gas boom in the United States. The series is called "The Fracking Boom: Missing Answers."

When Adam Spiegel rolls down the metal security doors at his Medford, Ore., store, a painting becomes visible. Officials told him to clean the graffiti or be fined. He tells the Mail-Tribune it's not graffiti: it's a mural. Some onlookers think the painting resembles a giant bong.

Philadelphia's school district plans to close a quarter of its school buildings in coming years to eliminate a huge budget hole. But parents and activists don't trust the decision-makers. Many of them suspect the plan is a ruse to force charter schools and privatization on the district.

The oil boom in western North Dakota has sparked a massive migration. Communities that struggled to keep people are now tripling in size as workers from all over seek their fortunes. In South Dakota, officials say there's oil in their state too. But before drillers head toward Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills, North Dakota's experience is being watched closely.

You may think of surfers as slackers. But in Santa Cruz, Calif., they're city council members and business owners. And they're also conservationists — who just got their piece of the central California coast named a World Surfing Reserve.

A website invites readers to submit photos of photos — images from the past, set in the present.

When Gac Filipaj fled war-torn Yugoslavia in 1992, he became a refugee in New York. He took a janitor's job at Columbia University because it included free tuition. But he first had to learn English. After a dozen years, he received a bachelor's degree in classics over the weekend.

The fast-casual chain's purchase could introduce some labor-saving technology into an industry that's paying higher wages to its human employees.

Shortly after Iran and Western powers signed a historic agreement on temporarily curbing Iran's Nuclear Program, politicians wasted no time in squaring off over whether it's a good or bad deal.

The initiative would have meant that an executive could never earn more money in a month than what the lowest-paid employee earns in a year. Sixty-five percent of voters came out against the measure.