News from NPR

Syria's foremost proponent of nonviolent protest says he's returning to Damascus this week and will keep delivering his long-standing message despite the country's worsening bloodshed.

Sheik Jawdat Said is an 81-year-old Islamic scholar whose books and teachings helped inspire young Syrian activists to challenge the regime in peaceful protests last year.

The man who reportedly shot and killed five people Wednesday in Seattle, before taking his own life, changed about five years ago into a mentally ill individual who was "really angry toward everything," his brother tells The Seattle Times.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee is down to the 50 semifinalists. Today at 10:00 Eastern, they'll compete in the semifinals (broadcast on ESPN2), and then tonight at 8:00, they'll hold the finals (broadcast on ESPN). You can also follow an online streaming version at ESPN online, but to be honest, it's an extremely cumbersome process that I haven't yet gotten to work for me.

The number of jobs on private employers' payrolls grew by a modest 133,000 positions from April to May, according to the latest ADP National Employment Report.

ADP's monthly report is sometimes a decent barometer of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics will say when it issues its employment estimates. We're due to hear from BLS about the May employment situation on Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET.

The youngest contestant ever in the National Spelling Bee, 6-year-old Lori Anne Madison of Woodbridge, Va., was foiled by a word most of us have probably never heard of before.

Ingluvies.

Definition: "The crop, or craw, of birds."

Lori Anne Madison has been eliminated from this week's Scripps National Spelling Bee. At six years old, she's the youngest ever to compete.

The DJ was pretty angry after discovering the green paint he used to dress up as the Incredible Hulk wasn't body paint. Turns out, he chose an industrial grade paint that's typically used on ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines. Friends and family spent a day scrubbing the 35 year old until the paint finally washed off.

The Dragon capsule has successfully detached from the International Space Station and is headed toward a splashdown in the Pacific that should happen around 11:45 a.m. ET.

Economists had predicted the growth of Asia's third-largest economy would continue to slow this year. But the latest data suggests the Indian economy is in worse shape than many analysts thought. The country's growth in the first quarter of this year was only 5.3 percent, compared to 9.2 percent last year.