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It's too cold to ski in parts of Minnesota, your favorite pizza place in Chicago might not be delivering, and schools are closing even in central Georgia. The polar vortex is throwing off everyday life around the nation.

How cold is it? It's so cold that at least one escapee from prison asked to be put back behind bars. Robert Vick walked away from a minimum security facility in Kentucky on Sunday. By Monday evening, he'd had enough. So he turned himself in.

Alcohol uses causes a lot of health problems, and most of the trouble strikes drinkers who aren't alcoholics. Something as simple as a five-question screening test and a brief chat about cutting back can help people change course. But more than 80 percent of adults say they've never discussed alcohol use with a health professional.

Keep the dog away when you're shoveling snow. Some can't resist jumping toward the flying flakes, and a dog is no match for a shovel blade. The sweet taste of antifreeze can be enticing for pets, but ethylene glycol, the main antifreeze, is also quite toxic. Clean up spills and drips.

Lee Baca announced his retirement a month after more than a dozen of his deputies were charged with beating inmates and jail visitors.

While the proportion of the world's population that smokes has shrunk, the total number of smokers on the earth continues to rise. In 2012, nearly a billion people smoked daily, compared with 721 million in 1980.

It's been 50 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson declared war on poverty. Host Michel Martin speaks with Anne Mosle, of the Aspen Institute, about how much has changed since then and if the battle needs a new plan of attack.

The vocalist and wild-eyed wordsmith behind the revered New Orleans sludge metal band says the musicians didn't consider giving up after their drummer died — they're trying to figure out how exactly to forge ahead.

Scientists have engineered a natural adhesive that can patch a hole in a pig's heart. The experimental glue is nontoxic, dissolves in the body and withstands high pressure inside a beating heart. But there's still a long way to go before the superglue could replace sutures in the operating room or on the battlefield.

Fresh Air TV critic David Bianculli says two new miniseries this week are worth special mention — and couldn't be more different. The Spoils Of Babylon is a miniseries soap-opera spoof on IFC; True Detective looks like the best HBO drama since The Wire.