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In 1990, 78 percent of Americans supported tougher restrictions on gun sales, according to a Gallup poll. A decade later, that number fell to 44 percent.

Part of the reason has to do with how the debate has been framed: one between those who want to ban all guns and those who want to protect the right to own them.

How do a Swedish producer and a Malawian singer end up collaborating? The partnership that became The Very Best was sparked several years ago, when Johan Karlberg stopped into a London secondhand store that was run by the Malawi-born Esau Mwamwaya, and the two started talking music.

Olympic winners like gold medalist Claressa Shields have said the games were a learning experience, but what were they learning? Hard work? Sure. Sportsmanship? Maybe. The metric system? Certainly not.

U.S. judo competitor Kyle Vashkulat competes at 100 kg, which he knows means he weighs 220 lbs. But does he know height?

"We were in a sauna, and the guy's telling us the height of the boxers, and he's like, 'Yeah, this guy's like, 1.7 meters' — and we're like, 'How tall is that?'" Vashkulat says, laughing.

News that Paul Ryan was chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate had people in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., abuzz Saturday morning. But the strong feelings Ryan provokes elsewhere for and against his policies were also evident.

On her way into the Janesville post office, Corrine Smith has a smile on her face. She and her husband are both big Paul Ryan supporters, and they were thrilled when they heard the news.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

Let's go now to Vin Weber, former Minnesota congressman and a senior adviser to Mitt Romney. Vin Weber, thanks for joining us.

VIN WEBER: Great to be with you today.

RAZ: You have known Paul Ryan for a long time, since before he was a member of Congress. How did you know him?

Mitt Romney's newly announced running mate, Paul Ryan, has long subscribed to the objectivist philosophies of novelist Ayn Rand. Host Guy Raz speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about how that approach to public policy will play with voters.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

So now that we know who Mitt Romney's running mate is, what about the keynote speaker at the Republican Convention later this month? No word yet. Democrats have announced that San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro will get that coveted spot that has, in the past, served as a platform for bigger things.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

MITT ROMNEY: It's an honor to announce my running mate and the next vice president of the United States, Paul Ryan.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

And as we've been reporting, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan has joined Mitt Romney on the GOP presidential ticket. The two men launched a multiday, multistate bus tour this morning. They spent much of the day in Virginia where crowds came out to cheer them on, including in Ashland, where Paul Ryan spoke.

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So what makes Paul Ryan such a bold pick and potentially such a risky one is the detailed budget plan he has now twice passed through the GOP-controlled House. That plan has not passed the Senate, and President Obama says if it reached his desk, he'd veto it. The heart of Ryan's plan calls for dramatic changes to the nation's largest government health programs, Medicare and Medicaid.

With us now to discuss what those changes could mean for the campaign and the country should Romney and Ryan win the race is NPR's Julie Rovner. Julie, hello.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis, oldest son of New Orleans pianist and educator Ellis Marsalis, released an album with his quartet this week. He spoke to weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz about the failings of modern jazz, his hopes for the next generation and leaving New York City to move back to the South.

You might imagine a war between lobster trappers to be something like this battle of the lobsters. OK, not really. Still, the price war heating up between the fishing folk in Maine and Canada this summer is bringing everybody down.

The London Summer Olympics are winding down, and by most accounts, the games have been a success. There were plenty of "thrill of victory, agony of defeat" moments; big, enthusiastic crowds — although there were too many blocks of empty seats; and for those who like a helping of scandal served up at their Olympics, there was that, too.

It wasn't the usual scourge of doping. Instead, the London Olympics had incidents of bending the rules and ethics of sport.

When writer David Rakoff died Thursday at the age 47, he was barely the age he said he was always "meant" to be. In his 2010 memoir, Half Empty, he wrote, "Everyone has an internal age, a time in life when one is, if not one's best, then at very least one's most authentic self. I always felt that my internal clock was calibrated somewhere between 47 and 53 years old."

Rakoff died in New York City after a long struggle with cancer — an ordeal that he wrote about with sobering honesty and biting wit.

The Royal Spanish Academy — the official arbiter of the Spanish language — recently announced that it will add the word "Espanglish" to the 2014 edition of its dictionary. This is a big deal for the traditionally conservative academy, and it's a big deal for supporters who feel that mix of Spanish and English has officially been ignored for more than a century.

With the Olympics drawing to a close, NBC is looking especially golden. They have had two weeks of great ratings — including record highs. What better time than on the eve of the network's new fall season to rack up two weeks of record audiences? But what might seem a slam dunk for the network is anything but.

Jennie Fields was well into her new novel about Edith Wharton — and her love affair with a young journalist — when she heard that a new cache of Wharton letters had been discovered. They were written to Anna Bahlmann, who was first Wharton's governess and later her literary secretary. Bahlmann had never been considered a major influence on Wharton, but Fields had decided to make her a central character in her book, The Age of Desire, even before she heard about the letters.

Zoe Chace and Robert Smith are reporting from European borders this week. This story is about the unofficial border within one country — the border that divides northern and southern Italy. This is the fourth story in a four-part series.

A decade ago, the Barilla pasta factory in Foggia, Italy, had a big problem with people skipping work. The absentee rate was around 10 percent.

This week, the presidential campaign has been dominated by debate over the welfare law from the 1990s. It's just the latest example of how both sides are trying to use the Clinton years to their advantage — portraying them as a halcyon golden age.

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When Egypt launched military operations earlier this week against Islamist extremists in the lawless Sinai Peninsula, they were described as the biggest in the area in decades. The move came after 16 Egyptian soldiers were killed in an ambush at their border post. State media outlets speaking for the government reported air strikes that killed more than 20 militants. They also reported ground troops moving into villages long off limits to the country's security forces.

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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. President Obama barnstormed through Colorado today holding rallies in Pueblo and Colorado Springs. It's his second full day in the state, one of a handful of battlegrounds that could decide the November election. As NPR's Scott Horsley reports, the president touted his support for clean energy and reached out to Colorado's growing Latino population.

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There's some disturbing news out today about a disease we don't hear about much these days: gonorrhea. Federal health officials announced that the sexually transmitted infection is getting dangerously close to being untreatable.

Zoe Chace and Robert Smith are reporting from European borders this week. This is the second story in a four-part series.

Maastricht, a town in the Netherlands, is known largely for two things.

1. The treaty that created the euro was signed there.
2. Marijuana is legal there, and it's sold at "coffee shops" around town.

This is the story of the troubled relationship between those two claims to fame.