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Between the bombing in Boston and the deadly explosion in Texas there are hundreds of Americans still in the hospital, many of them facing large hospital and rehab costs. After tragedies like these, home-grown charities usually pop up immediately to help with expenses. Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, a website which ranks philanthropic organizations based on performance, joins us to talk about donating.

"We're seeing a variety of charities popping up, none of them that have any track record that we know of. For example, there's a group in Boston called TUGG that's raising funds. Of course, in the case of Boston -- as was the case in New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy -- the governor has organized a fund," says Berger.

Berger says people have given a lot -- millions of dollars have already been raised. But how do you choose which charity to give to?

"A lot of it has to do with risk and expectations. The faster you want to see your money move, the higher the risk. If you're willing to wait a while, you lower your risk substantially, but the concern is victims and family need support right away. So it's a trade off. So there's no easy answer," says Berger. "Our general recommendation is to go slow because then you know for certain it's a reputable organization with a track record or even a new organization like one organized by the governor and the mayor that has the gravitas that eventually the money will get there. That's really the key: the faster you go, the higher the likelihood you're going to get ripped off."

If you're looking for a charity to help victims in the Boston bombing, Charity Navigator has these suggestions:

Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund

• The four time 4-star Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund has created the Boston Marathon Relief Fund. Money raised will support the charity's efforts to send "staff, volunteers, and amputees wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan to Boston, to provide encouragement, guidance and immediate financial support to victims and their families."
• To contribute to this effort, they're instructing donors to visit the America's Fund website (a program of the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund) and designate their donation to the Boston Marathon Relief Fund (by scrolling down to reads: "Is this donation in support of an event, campaign, or fundraiser?" checking "yes" and selecting Boston Marathon Relief Fund from the drop-down menu.)

TUGG

•  This fundraising appeal promises that “all proceeds will be donated completely to programs working with victims of the attacks. We are consulting with the Mayor's office, the hospitals that cared for the patients, and other responder teams to assess the most pertinent needs and to deliver funding directly to those impacted”
• TUGG is a 501 c 3 public charity, but it is too small yet for Charity Navigator to rate.
• In 2011, TUGG spent $84,000 on fundraising and nothing on administrative fees or program fees (this is the category that charities show their spending on their charitable mission).

The One Fund

• This fundraising effort was established on April 16th by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino “to help the people most affected by the tragic events that occurred in Boston on April 15, 2013.”
• Kenneth Feinberg, who has overseen funds for victims of 9/11, the BP oil spill and mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and at Virginia Tech, will oversee The One Fund.
• The group has applied for nonprofit status, but does not yet have it.  The notice about the fund’s creation does properly note that “although the Fund cannot guarantee that the IRS will make a determination that the organization qualifies as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity, if approval is received within the expected time frame, the determination will be retroactive to the date of the Fund’s formation.”
• We’ve seen similar efforts after other disasters, including Superstorm Sandy in which the Governor of New Jersey and his wife started a fund. At the time, it too did not have nonprofit status (it does now).

Plus, here are tips to remember before you donate:

• Collectively, donors have the power to hold these funds accountable for distributing the funds to the victims in a timely manner. That’s not to say we don’t want the funds to take enough time to ensure the money is going to real victims in need, but we also don’t want years to pass before the funds are released.
• Be suspicious of online appeals, especially in light of the fact that hundreds of new website URLs have popped up since the bombing that use keywords related to the tragedy.
• Seems silly to have to say, but remember, a victim isn't going to know your personal email address to send you a direct appeal for help. This happens after every tragedy and sadly, some people, giving from their heart, don’t stop to think before they click on an email and give their personal financial information.
• You may also want to consider other ways to help such as donating blood, signing up to get trained as a disaster volunteer, or volunteer in your time or donating to a charity in your local communit.

What about giving to home-grown charities -- people who have friends or family members who are victims and start charities on Kickstarter and similar crowdfunding platforms?

"The general rule of thumb there is some of them are wonderful and some of them are terrible. So if you live in the local area and you can eyeball the organization yourself, then by all means go for those local home-grown organizations if you really feel they're going to do some good work right away," says Berger. "But if you're in another state and you have to make an assessment from a distance, you run a risk that the charities are not that well vetted, that they are a scam."

As for people who have the urge to set up a charity for victims of a tragedy, Berger says the first step you should take is look around and see if there are other people or organizations who have the same goals as yours. The U.S. has more charities than anywhere else in the world. So Berger says you should try to hook your efforts up with other people -- which will help you get expertise and traction that you might not otherwise have.

Images collected from social media show veritable ghost towns Friday after local residents were ordered to "shelter in place" during a manhunt for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings.

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Area residents found themselves stuck inside of a crime scene Thursday night and Friday morning. Pictures taken behind window screens and on top of roofs gave the world a look at what people were seeing.

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With a manhunt underway for a suspect in Monday's bombings, the area in and around Boston has been virtually shut down. Transit isn't running, and most businesses and schools are closed. Most people are safe at home, but many are unnerved.

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The two suspects in Monday's deadly Boston Marathon explosions and the Thursday night murder of a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are brothers from a former Soviet republic who were in the United States legally for years and lived together in a Cambridge, Mass., apartment.

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Author Dennis Lehane talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about his New York Times op-ed, "Messing with the Wrong City," which expressed his love for his hometown.

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Charles Sennott, vice president, executive editor and co-founder of GlobalPost, talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the ongoing manhunt in Boston. Seth Mnookin, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, describes live-tweeting the events at MIT.

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Tylenol may relieve more than physical pain; it may dull existential aches, too. Researchers say their work is consistent with a growing body of research that suggests the brain processes physical and emotional pain in similar ways.

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Fast breaking developments in the marathon bombing manhunt put the city of Boston on lockdown. Host Michel Martin checks in with Boston resident Neil Minkoff, and gets perspective on keeping a major city safe during a manhunt from former London police official, Brian Paddick.

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The new Senate proposal to overhaul immigration policy is more than 800 pages long. Host Michel Martin gets a crash course on some of the details and what they mean for immigrants and the rest of the country. She's joined by immigration lawyer Sonia Ansari and Matt Barreto from the polling group, Latino Decisions.

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Listeners sound off on the program's hottest conversations as editor Ammad Omar joins host Michel Martin for Back Talk. This week listeners respond to a study that says the U.S. tortured detainees after 9/11.

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The boomer uncoupling trend has become so common it even has a name: gray divorce. I'm happily married, but some of my friends who've been married for over 30 years have suddenly decided to call the whole thing off. It puzzles me why so many 60s flower children are ditching all the wedded peace and love in their later years.

A word of caution is in order. Before you decide the grass will be greener as a single, consider the financial impact of divorce. In general, a divorced boomer is significantly poorer than a married one. Experts estimate that it costs at least 30 percent more to live as a carefree single than as a couple. That's because you'll likely need your own bachelor pad, a stand-alone medical policy, and perhaps even a new car. Vacations and eating out will suddenly be more expensive without a partner to share the costs.

Once you finish splitting up the pots and pans, some of the other financial downsides set in. Your 401(k)s are likely to be split in two, so you may have to defer your retirement plans, and when you go solo you'll likely pay higher taxes and miss some cherished tax breaks you've become accustomed to, like the mortgage deduction.

And there's more. If you spent your adult life being a great mom, the credit bureaus may find you invisible. Worse yet, maybe your spouse has been secretly racking up credit card debt for which you will now be held jointly responsible. So before you decide to untie the well-worn knot, take a long, hard look at the lifestyle changes in store for you. You may just decide to love the one you're with.  

It's not just high school seniors who check their email obsessively this time of year. College seniors and in particular law school aspirants, are eager for news of their futures, too.

For the bright young students who get in, the thrill comes with the cold reality of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

Trevor Morrison has a thrill of his own this spring. The Columbia law school professor will become the dean of NYU's law school this June.

Despite the great number of lawyers already practicing, and the threat of stagnating wages, Morrison believes top-tier graduates have an advantage over other students, even taking NYU's $51,500 annual tuition into account. Like Morrison's previous employer, the school is among the top 10 law schools, according to U.S. News rankings. 

"The decision whether to go to law school at all, and the decision to pursue an education at a place like NYU, if one is afforded that opportunity, are just not the same decisions," he says. 

Even the best legal education doesn't guarantee future employment. Morrison says a good law school will do its best to help graduates' career prospects.

"The goal is not simply to find jobs for our graduates," he says, "but to help them pursue the employment they most want to pursue."

Some young lawyers who aspire to become judges or public advocates may have a much harder time paying off loans for law school. That can push talented, but not already well-off students, toward elite private firms. 

While Morrison says you can serve the public good in the private sector, NYU and some other top law schools do lend students a hand after graduation. 

"All NYU graduates working in public interest related jobs with income of $80,000 per year or less can qualify for 100 percent loan repayment assistance through the law school."

Despite the short- and long-term challenges in legal profession, Morrison is decidedly optimistic. 

"The value proposition of a legal education, of a top-level legal education, is clear. And has never been clearer."

Would you recommend your career path to a younger person? Let us know in the comments. 

The Boston area had been shut down for much of Friday as police searched for 19-year-old Dzhozkar Tsarnaev. The surreal-ness of a city shut down amidst the manhunt seems something taken out of a movie. And it's a plot that wouldn't be out of place at a theater this weekend. "People seem to like [disaster movies] when they're well done but I wonder whether people will want to see that this weekend," says Wesley Morris, film critic for Grantland.

The big release this weekend is sci-fi thriller "Oblivion," starring Tom Cruise. Morris reviewed the film for Grantland earlier this week. It's one of many science fiction films that are hitting the big screen this year, most of them featuring tales of dystopia. "We seem to be getting one at least every two weeks."

Will "Oblivion" take a hit this weekend? Or will Americans try to engage in a bit of escapism? "The top ten movies are all, with the exception of '42' and 'The Croods,' sort of violent, apocalyptic, horror movies or they involve terrorism of some kind." He points out "you've got two movies where the White House is under siege." Not exactly a relief from the nightly news.

"I'm going to assume that the box office is going to be down in general because everyone's going to be watching TV."

The frozen food industry wants you to know that even though its food isn't "fresh," it's still good. And they're paying big bucks to convince you.

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The frozen food industry wants you to know that even though their food isn't fresh, it's still good. And they're paying big bucks to convince you.

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Spring is the perfect time to get realistic about budgeting. Carmen Wong Ulrich is here to help us set some limits. She's a personal finance journalist and the author of "The Real Cost of Living."

Wong Ulrich says it's a good time to think about budgeting after filing your taxes because most people have been knee-deep in their finances. She sees it's a good time to go back in and track your expenses -- explore where you are spending your money.

"First of all, I do need you to think about goals and kind of see where things are at. So simultaneously you want to say where do I have a hole, meaning that I'm spending too much money and digging myself into one. And then where do I really want to be? Because goals, as we all know, it kind of tricks your mind into getting motivated," says Wong Ulrich. "But you want to look at what's been bothering you. Is it groceries? Is it your transportation? What is really eating at you?"

Wong Ulrich says you should name where your money is going -- and then put a price tag on it, so that you can identify where you are spending.

"The day-to-day is so expensive. And you find yourself saying, 'How much did I spend on this?' Groceries to monthly subscriptions to other fees -- every day money is coming out of us. And because usually we use plastic, it's become this amorphous thing. So it's good to take a tally every day and I always recommend people to do the diet thing, which is where you really literally write down every dollar you spend. The simple act of writing it down makes you more cognizant of what you're doing and actually, studies show, makes you reduce where you spend," says Wong Ulrich.

One big tip she has if you want to maintain your budget throughout the year: automate as much as you can so you have fewer late fees and you can track where everything is going.

While the manhunt for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings continued Thursday night into Friday morning, residents of Watertown and surrounding communities were hiding in bedrooms, looking out from roofs and peering from behind locked doors. Many did not sleep as helicopters swirled overhead.

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The National Rifle Association notched another victory this week with the defeat of gun control legislation in the Senate, burnishing its reputation as one of the most effective -- if not the most effective -- lobbying organizations around. Lobbyists for all sorts of other causes are looking at the NRA's success and wondering how they might crib some of the secrets of its playbook.

Jim Thurber has taught a how-to lobbying course at American University for 30 years. The NRA is so good, Thurber says, he brings their chief lobbyist in to talk to students. Thurber says the NRA does have lots of money, but the real lesson here is how it organizes its members to pressure lawmakers.

“So they have at least 180,000 that are immediately reactive to anything that’s going on,” Thurber says. “Through the internet, they get mobilized and send a message.”

Toby Moffett knows some of the targets of those messages. He’s a former member of Congress, who now lobbies mostly on behalf of foreign countries. He says some House Democrats told him they were amazed at how their incoming emails suddenly turned against gun control, during the recent debate.

“Their mail had totally flipped,” he explains. “From 5-1 in favor of doing something, to 5-1 against doing something.  Now, that didn’t just happen by accident. That was the NRA.”

Even though Moffett is a gun control supporter, he appreciates the NRA’s lobbying prowess. He uses similar tactics to build citizen coalitions for his clients.

Steve Fox is also a lobbyist. He’s with the Marijuana Policy Project, which wants to change federal laws on pot. He tries to emulate the NRA’s ability to frame an issue in terms of fundamental rights.

“They are focused on guns, he says. “We are focused on marijuana. They’re similar in that way. It’s sort of an individual liberty issue.”

Fox’s group has even tried to join forces with the NRA to overturn a law that prohibits marijuana users from owning guns. But so far, the NRA isn’t interested.

Not 24 hours after the FBI released images of two suspects in Monday's blasts, one of the suspects is dead and the other is still at large.

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