Search results for

Commentator Jim Culleny lives in a depressed area of Massachusetts where the residents are tempted to accept casino gambling as an answer to a slow economy. But as he watches a man play a "scratch and win" game at his local convenience store, Culleny is struck by how gambling is kind of like the myth of Sisyphus, the participant alwys ends up back where he started. In this country of innovation, he says, we can do better than to count on casinos and blind luck for our personal fiscal salvation.

50 years ago this month Jackie Robinson became the first black man to play major league baseball, after signing a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers. All Things Considered asked listeners to write and talk about their memories of Robinson. Today, on Opening Day, ATC listeners around the country remember watching Robinson play at Ebbits Field in Brooklyn, how his aggressive play intensified the game, and what his presence on the team meant to them.

Performance artist Laurie Anderson creates an original piece for All Things Considered based on the three days she spent in mission control of a space simulation. Students at Claremont McKenna College in Pomona, California recruited local citizens to pretend they were in space. They shut them into a tight cabin and watched how they dealt with confinement. This week, NASA is holding its first-ever meeting of a steering committee to explore the various aspects of tourism in space. (IN STEREO)

North Korea inflames nuclear fears by ordering U.N. monitors out of the country. The Bush administration, busy elsewhere, watches warily. Hear NPR's Scott Simon and international relations expert Ellen Laipson, president of the Henry L. Stimson Center.

NPR's Annie Wu reports on the discovery of ten plays by Zora Neale Hurston, the celebrated novelist who wrote "Their Eyes Were Watching God." The African-American writer is best known for her books and short stories, which capture the dialect, traditions, and history of southern blacks in the early 20th century. Hurston's plays follow in the same vein, and include songs she documented when she worked as an Anthropologist in Florida.

As overhauling Social Security takes center stage in Washington, perhaps no group is watching the debate more closely than middle-aged Americans.

Before Sesame Street and Rugrats, an entire generation of children spent afternoons watching locally produced TV shows. Many local news anchors and weathermen did double duty as hosts, donning a cowboy hat or clown costume. Morning Edition host Bob Edwards interviews Tim Hollis, author of a new book about the history of local kids' TV shows.

An international war crimes tribunal is taking place in the African nation of Sierra Leone -- a legal proceeding all but unnoticed by most of the outside world. NPR's Tony Cox talks with Elise Keppler, a lawyer for the International Justice Program of Human Rights Watch, and Raymond Brown and Wanda Akin Brown, two lawyers defending one of three military leaders charged with committing war crimes during that nation's civil war.

Harlem Renaissance fixture Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, is the subject of a new biography by her niece. Speak, So You Can Speak Again includes a CD of family photos and audio recordings. Lucy Ann Hurston tells NPR's Liane Hansen about her aunt's literary legacy.

Obsessive baseball fan has snagged 3,123 baseballs at 42 different major league stadiums. He blogs, appears on TV and radio, gives stadium tours — and his new book is Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan's Guide for Beginners, Semi-Experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks.

Arizona is one of the most closely watched states in the nation, with competitive primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, attorney general and secretary of state.

Amidst the limited series becoming Netflix's second most-watched English language series after "Stranger Things," victims' families are among the series' critics, saying that glorifying or humanizing a serial killer is wrong.