By: Beth Garbitelli

Veteran Celestino Almeda. Photo courtesy of Eric Lachica.

World War II ended almost 70 years ago but some Filipino veterans are still waiting for recognition of their services.

"We are just asking for fair treatment," Celestino Almeda said.

Almeda is one of approximately 4,000 applicants for compensation who were not granted veteran status and are contesting that decision.

The path for recognition began years ago for Almeda, who fought for nearly six years to become a naturalized citizen via his veteran status. Almeda celebrated his 95th birthday this past June.

"Guess where I celebrated my birthday?" Almeda asked, chuckling. Along with other guests, Almeda attended a reception hosted by Secretary Hillary Clinton in honor of Filipino President Aquino. "I was one of the invited guests," Almeda said.

By: Meena Ganesan and beth garbitelli

Asian-Americans are the fastest-growing minority group in the country, according to the U.S. Census. Last year, they surpassed Latinos as the largest group of new immigrants. While they haven't received the most attention politically, their rapid population growth in swing states like Nevada has caused presidential campaigns to take notice.

A county-by-county breakdown of where Nevada's Asian-Americans live. They now make up 9.9 percent of the state's total population.

The NewsHour traveled to Nevada to find out more.

"They just need to listen to us," said Gloria Caoile, a Las Vegas resident. "They need to come to Nevada, listen to the people, see how the people live, see and not just come, and see. They have to listen."

President Obama won the state in 2008, but neither campaign will bet on an easy victory this year and have already begun efforts to sway key voter demographics.

By: David Pelcyger

Banadir Hospital staff bring a patient in for treatment. Photo by Abdullahi Ahmed Hussein.

In the Somali capital Mogadishu, Mohammed Saeed Hassan was driving his ambulance one day in February when an artillery shell landed directly in front of him. The shell splintered the windshield and left Hassan with minor injuries, but he was able to pick up the injured patient and get him to the hospital for treatment.

Conflict within the country has been a fact of life since 1991. In 2010, at the height of hostilities between the Transitional Federal Government and al-Shabab, an Islamist group with ties to al-Qaida, more than 6,000 people were admitted to the city's two largest hospitals.

By: Jenny Marder

This artist's concept features NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover, a mobile robot designed to Mars' past or present ability to sustain microbial life. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA scientists call it the seven minutes of terror: the amount of time it will take the Curiosity rover to plunge through the Mars atmosphere and deploy a massive parachute and sophisticated landing system called a sky crane and then -- hopefully -- touch down safely on the surface of the Red Planet.

Then for 14 minutes, scientists will wait as the radio signal travels the 150 million miles from Mars to Earth. NASA created this video on the suspense of those seven minutes.

Sticking that landing will make the one-ton, Mini Cooper-sized rover the seventh craft to land on Mars. This graphic from NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center shows the landing sites of the six that are already there -- Viking 1, Viking 2, Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity and Phoenix -- plus the target location where they're hoping Curiosity will touch down.

Curiosity is expected to complete its nine-month, 354-million-mile journey to Mars on August 6. NASA's 11-year-old Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which is orbiting Mars, has been repositioned to track and provide confirmation of the robot's landing.

If all goes as planned, it will land about 4.5 miles south of the planet's equator on the ancient Gale Crater, which Richard Cook, deputy project manager of the Mars Science Laboratory mission called "the Grand Canyon of Mars" in an interview last year.

By: News Desk and Aisha Turner

Indian porters push a parcels cart over railway tracks near a web of high voltage line feeders at a train station in New Delhi on July 31, 2012. A massive power failure hit India for the second day running as three regional power grids collapsed, blacking out more than half the country in a crisis affecting more than 600 million people. Photo by Roberto Schmidt/ AFP

Hundreds of millions of people across India were without power today as the world's worst blackout stretched into Tuesday. India's power grid collapsed in 14 states throughout the country's northern and eastern regions. And for many of those left without power, this was the second time in two days.

The outages stalled more than 500 trains and delayed would-be passengers. In central New Delhi, traffic choked dark city streets.

To ease the frustration the country's southern and western grids supplied power to help restore services caused by the outages. As of this morning, the government could not pinpoint a reason for today's outage. Yesterday's outage was blamed on an overdrawing of power, but today's failure seemed to indicate a technical fault. Weak monsoons are also getting some of the blame -- less rainfall means less water for hydroelectric dams.

By nightfall in India, most of the power in the north near New Delhi had been restored. But the infrastructure problems are still a major blow for Asia's third largest economy trying to make its mark on the world stage.

For more coverage of the power failure in India, see the coverage on Sky News and the Hindustan Times , both reporting from New Delhi.

By: Kelly Chen and Imani M. Cheers

Akua Kouyate, Wolf Trap's senior director of education (Courtesy of Teddy Wolff)

During tough economic times, arts and music programs are often some of the first programs cut in schools. But at Wolf Trap's Institute for Early Learning Through the Arts , investing in arts education has been a priority for the past 31 years.

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts shows that students from lower socio-economic backgrounds who actively participated in the arts tended to score better in science and writing, and were more likely to aspire to college.

The study used survey data gathered over 20 years that followed socially and economically disadvantaged students, from kindergarten into their early twenties.

At Wolf Trap's Institute of Education, they are trying something different by incorporating art with math and science.

It's part of a different STEM movement gaining momentum, called "STEAM" - science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics, a match that may seem a little strange, but a no brainer for some.

By: Paul Solman

Creative Commons photo courtesy flickr user 401(K) 2012.

Monday's post featuring Boston University economist Larry Kotlikoff and his "34 Social Security Secrets" is attracting viewers like a new Lady Gaga video -- at least by Making Sen$e standards. Tens of thousands of you have flocked here in the past 24 hours and you're spending many minutes on what is, Larry forgive me, a moderately wonky stretch of prose.

Considering that Larry has himself been refining his "secrets" list for about a month now, and working on the issue for many years, there are bound to be questions. As a close FOM$*, he's willing to answer them. So please pose yours in the comments box below.

Paul Solman frequently answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news on his Making Sen$e page. Here is Tuesday's query:

Name: Judith

Question: How much revenue would come into the Social Security Trust Fund each year and how far out would Social Security solvency be extended if the payroll cap were to be eliminated?

Paul Solman: I've just gone back to a story we did on this very subject back in 2005 with Columbia finance professor Stephen Zeldes, "Raising Tax Cap Explored as Way to Close Social Security Gap," and here's what I reported at the time:

"Removing the cap entirely, thereby imposing a flat tax of 12.4 percent on all earnings -- essentially a $100 billion a year tax increase on the wealthy -- would more than completely close the funding gap."

By: Paul Solman

Real estate agent Diane Olson opens the sliding glass door of a model home in Gilbert, Ariz. "[Phoenix] was one of the hardest hit cities in the collapse, and prices are still more than 50 percent below their June 2006 peak, but the past five months have been positive for that market," David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said. Photo by Laura Segall/Bloomberg via Getty Images.

Tuesday morning's news features a few economic downers: U.S. consumer spending is flat, as Americans save more; unemployment in the eurozone has reached new peaks. But on the U.S. housing front, the latest Case-Shiller numbers are in, and from April to May, all signs are positive. For the first month in recent memory, all 20 cities in the Case-Shiller index saw an increase in prices, even bedraggled Detroit.

• To view a particular city, click Hide All and then select the city's label.
• Click and drag your mouse on the chart to zoom in on a particular span of time.
• Use the box at top to choose your view: quarterly percent change, yearly percent change, monthly index value.

By: Terence Burlij and Katelyn Polantz

Mitt Romney gives a speech Tuesday at the University of Warsaw. Photo Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images.

Suffice it to say Mitt Romney's overseas tour has not gone exactly to plan.

First, there was the controversy over his comments about London's preparedness for the Olympic Games and sharing with reporters that he had met with the head of Britain's intelligence agency, something typically not made public.

And now, remarks he made in Israel have overshadowed his visit to Poland, where on Tuesday he delivered a major foreign policy speech in Warsaw praising the friendship between the United States and the Eastern European nation.

"I believe it is critical to stand by those who have stood by America. Solidarity was a great movement that freed a nation. And it is with solidarity that America and Poland face the future," Romney said.

By: Cindy Huang

Former congressional aide Marci Harris was frustrated with the way information and messages flooded into the office of Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., and got lost. In 2010, she left to solve government's biggest problems.

"The way information is processed is breaking. There has to be a new way," said Harris, who went on to found PopVox, a tech startup that works to improve the communication between Congress and its constituents.

Earlier this week, more than 600 entrepreneurs and government and technology leaders came together at the Next Generation of Government Summit to hear speakers, attend presentations and participate in workshops about how to improve government. The workshops included "Tech Tips: 50 ways to be more effective," "Problem Solving: Improving Technology" and "How to Drive Big Changes in Government."