A handful of states are facing the first week of the new fiscal year with no budget. In Pennsylvania the legislature failed to pass a budget to close a more than $3 billion shortfall, and now as many as 69,000 state workers may go without pay until a budget is passed. We talk with Jan Murphy, capitol bureau chief for the Patriot News in Harrisburg.

Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller were only 17 years old when they met. They were a couple of white Jewish kids who wanted to write songs for black artists. Well, that they did... and more, turning out hits for Elvis Presley, Peggy Lee and numerous other performers. They tell their story in the new book, "Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography," and they join us for a conversation about their memorable musical partnership.

To save money, dozens of towns have canceled their fireworks display this holiday weekend, but the festivities in Addison, Texas are going strong. The town of 15,000 swells to 200,000 as people come to see the fireworks display. Lea Dunn, the town's deputy city manager, tells us why their celebration is so popular.

On this day before July 4th, we learn about another call for freedom, created over 100 years before the Declaration of Independence. The Flushing Remonstrance, signed by 30 farmers in what is now Flushing New York, protested the religious intolerance of Peter Stuyvesant, the governor of New Amsterdam. We speak with Kenneth T. Jackson, professor of history at Columbia University about its significance.

We revisit a story filled with passion and politics set in Boston in the years before the Revolutionary War. It plays out in the novel "Blindspot: By A Lady in Disguise and a Gentleman in Exile." It was written by Jill Lepore and Jane Kamenskey, historians who weave fact and fiction into a very entertaining work in the tradition of Tom Jones. Here and Now's Alex Ashlock prepared our report on the book.