Jim Brown, Dennis Rodman and O.J. Simpson are all former professional athletes who've tried their hand at acting. Showbiz might seem like a natural path for guys with big egos and million-watt personalities, but Eddie George is a former NFL player who's taken a different path to the limelight.

He's joining a fraternity of actors that includes Charlton Heston and Orson Welles in playing William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

In Texas today, conservative Christian and evangelical leaders begin two days of meetings to discuss political strategy, and perhaps to coalesce around a Republican presidential candidate other than front-runner Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts.

NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty reports on the search for a so-called "Jesus candidate" and the evolving influence of Christian right leaders in the Republican Party.

Joran van der Sloot, the 24-year-old Dutchman who remains the prime suspect in the still-unsolved 2005 disappearance of Alabama teen Natalee Holloway in Aruba, was just sentenced to 28 years in prison for the 2010 murder of a woman in Peru.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Now it's time for our weekly visit to the Barbershop, where the guys talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds.

Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are author Jimi Izrael, civil rights attorney and author Arsalan Iftikhar, NPR's own political editor, our political junkie, Ken Rudin, and from National Review magazine and the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Mario Loyola.

Take it away, Jimi.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

And now, it's time for BackTalk. That's where we lift the curtain on what's happening in the TELL ME MORE blogosphere. Editor Ammad Omar is here again to tell us what listeners are talking about.

But before we hear from him, I want to clarify something. On Wednesday's program, we talked about how former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Republican presidential contender, was under fire for his work at Bain and Company. Actually, it was Romney's tenure at Bain Capital that is the source of the controversy.

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now, we want to call on Michael Rezendes. He is one of the investigative reporters, and the lead writer, on that Boston Globe story that revealed a serious problem with the abuse of children by a number of priests in the Boston Archdiocese. In the months and years that followed, literally hundreds of similar cases were revealed across the country. We want to take a look back at that watershed moment, and we do want to say again that, owing to the subject matter, this may not be an appropriate conversation for everyone.

In the decade since The Boston Globe broke the story about the cover-up of pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese, countless Americans have shared their stories of clergy abuse. Bob Hoatson is a former priest who was abused as a teen by church leaders. He speaks with host Michel Martin. (Advisory: This segment may not be suitable for all audiences.)

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker won a tough fight to strip most public-sector unions of their collective bargaining rights. He now faces a recall effort. In Indiana, politicians want to exempt nonunion employees from paying dues when working alongside union workers. Host Michel Martin speaks with journalists from the two states.