Even before President [Barack] Obama announced actions aimed at tightening controls on gun purchases, sales were up, partly in reaction to terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Gun dealers say the president's initiatives have spurred sales. At the same time, polling shows more than two thirds of Americans support the president's proposals, including a majority of gun owners.

About half of the loyalists who left the United States ended up going north to Canada, settling in the province of Nova Scotia and also becoming pioneering settlers in the province of New Brunswick.

Republicans in Congress have already taken the initial steps to start repealing the Affordable Care Act. Democrats are hoping to at the very least slow that process down by rallying public support for the health care law.

History is, as we know, written by the winners.

Average, middle-class people, the people of Macomb County, couldn't afford health care. Now they can [with Obamacare].

When the Revolutionary War ended in 1781, not everyone was celebrating. It is estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of the population back then were loyal to the British Crown and thus were not so thrilled when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

We have to laugh. Life is hard and the news is often grim - you should be able to turn on NPR's Weekend Edition every week and know that we are going to make you think, make you question - and make you laugh, preferably out loud.