First And Main
3:07 am
Mon August 6, 2012

Even In Florida Swing County, Minds Seem Made Up

Originally published on Mon August 6, 2012 9:04 pm

Let's take a picture of America in the latter months of an election year. We want to sense what's on this country's mind. So Morning Edition begins a series of reports from First and Main. Several times in the next few months, we'll travel to a battleground state, then to a vital county in each state. In that county we find a starting point for our visit — an iconic American corner — First and Main streets.

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Shots - Health Blog
2:29 am
Mon August 6, 2012

An Anthropologist Walks Into A Bar And Asks, 'Why Is This Joke Funny?'

Originally published on Thu August 9, 2012 3:26 pm

It's Saturday night at the Metropolitan Room, a comedy club in New York City. Host Jimmy Failla is warming up the crowd.

"Where you guys from?" he asks one group in the audience. "Boston? Home of the Red Sox. Personally, we'd prefer you rooted for the Taliban!"

There are 50 or 60 people in the audience, sipping cocktails. Failla has a system. He asks people where they're from. Most are locals. He then hits them with something they can relate to.

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Author Interviews
2:01 am
Mon August 6, 2012

'American Dream,' Betrayed By Bad Economic Policy

Originally published on Tue October 9, 2012 6:33 am

A lot is at stake in the current election, but no matter who wins, the victor will stay committed to policies that cripple the middle class. That's according to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele, who've been covering the middle class for decades.

In their new book, The Betrayal of the American Dream, Barlett and Steele criticize a government obsessed with free trade and indifferent toward companies that outsource jobs.

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Crime In The City
2:00 am
Mon August 6, 2012

Author Peter James And Sidekick Track Seaside Crime

Credit Gareth Ransome
After turning over a book to his publisher, Peter James wakes up the next day and starts on the next one.

Originally published on Wed August 8, 2012 9:39 am

Any tour of Brighton, England, has to begin at the Royal Pavilion, according to crime writer Peter James. Built by a king for his mistress 200 years ago, its Taj Mahal-like spires are the city's best-known landmark.

James' latest novel, Not Dead Yet, features — spoiler alert! — a pivotal scene in the pavilion's dining room, with its one-and-a-half ton crystal chandelier. Without giving too much away — the book won't be released in the U.S. until November – let's just say it might have something to do with the aforementioned chandelier.

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Dead Stop
1:59 am
Mon August 6, 2012

In Warhol's Memory, Soup Cans And Coke Bottles

Originally published on Mon August 6, 2012 12:02 pm

Andy Warhol is often remembered as larger than life, but it's all too easy to miss where he's buried.

The pop artist's grave is in the modest St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery, on a hill overlooking a highway about 20 minutes outside of downtown Pittsburgh.

Eric Shiner, director of the Andy Warhol Museum, says it's a pretty typical cemetery for Pennsylvanians with Eastern European roots.

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Credit Doby Photography / NPR

Mark Stencel is managing editor for digital news. He is responsible for overseeing the journalism on NPR's website and other platforms and gizmos.

Since Stencel joined NPR in 2009, the network has been recognized as one of industry's leading digital news services, honored with the 2011 Eppy award for best journalism website from Editor & Publisher, a 2010 National Press Foundation award for excellence in online journalism, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, a Peabody award, and the 2011 Webby and People's Voice awards for news from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences.

Stencel previously worked in both print and online journalism, and on the editorial and business sides of publishing. He was the executive editor and deputy publisher at GOVERNING, a monthly magazine and website written for leaders in state and local government and published by Congressional Quarterly. Stencel served as a managing editor at CQ, where he helped lead one of the largest news staffs on Capitol Hill, coordinating daily coverage of Congress, online and in print. Stencel also wrote regular columns and e-mail newsletters on technology trends for both GOVERNING and CQ Weekly.

Stencel began his career at the Washington Post as an assistant to syndicated columnist David S. Broder and as a researcher for the newspaper's national politics staff. After a stint as a science and technology correspondent for The News & Observer in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina — one of the first newspapers in the country to publish a web edition — Stencel returned to the Post in 1996 to help launch the company's first website: PoliticsNow, an election-year multimedia partnership involving ABC News, Newsweek and National Journal. Stencel then directed washingtonpost.com's award-winning political coverage, including President Clinton's impeachment and the 1998 and 2000 elections. Later, as a senior editor on the newspaper's breaking news desk, he served as a liaison between the Post's print and online newsrooms, coordinating coverage of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2004 election and other major stories.

In addition to his work as an editor, Stencel was a vice president at the Post Company's online division, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, where he directed the business side of early mobile and multimedia efforts and managed content partnerships and projects with other news organizations, online publishers and mobile phone carriers and device makers. Stencel worked with the company's editorial, marketing and sales leaders to cultivate the Post's growing online audience across the country and around the world — a new line of business for what had been a local newspaper, despite its national reputation. (In that role, he briefly served as the digital division's "vice president for global conquest.")

Stencel is the co-author of two books on media and politics — Peep Show: Media and Politics and in an Age of Scandal, written with political scientists Larry J. Sabato and S. Robert Lichter; and On the Line: The New Road to the White House, written with CNN's Larry King. He continues to write about science and technology, including digital media trends, on his personal blog, "Assignment: Future" (http://assignmentfuture.com).

The Two-Way
11:28 pm
Sun August 5, 2012

LIVE NOW: Mars Rover's High-Wire Landing

Originally published on Mon August 6, 2012 5:26 am

The best place to stand in the entire solar system at 1:14 a.m. ET Monday was about 150 million miles away, at the bottom of Gale Crater near the equator of the Red Planet.

Looking west around mid-afternoon local time, a Martian bystander would have seen a rocket-powered alien spacecraft approach and then hover about 60 feet over the rock-strewn plain between the crater walls and the towering slopes of nearby Mount Sharp.

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The Record
9:12 pm
Sun August 5, 2012

Chavela Vargas, Legendary Ranchera Singer, Dies

Credit STR/AFP/Getty Images
Chavela Vargas performing in Buenos Aires in 2004.

Originally published on Tue September 18, 2012 6:23 pm

A legend of Latin American song has died. Chavela Vargas was a cultural icon across the Spanish-speaking world, with a voice that redefined notions of beauty and an attitude that brashly bent gender roles. Vargas died Sunday; she was 93.

She was born Isabel Vargas Lizano in Costa Rica, but audiences knew her as Chavela, a hard-partying, rabble-rousing, fiery singer who adopted Mexico as her homeland and began singing on the streets in her early teens.

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Newport Jazz Festival
6:39 pm
Sun August 5, 2012

John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet + 1, Live In Concert: Newport Jazz 2012

Credit Erik Jacobs for NPR
John Hollenbeck's Claudia Quintet performs at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival.
  • John Hollenbeck Claudia Quintet + 1 Live From Newport

A powerhouse behind the drum kit, John Hollenbeck is also becoming one of the great composer-bandleaders of the age. After last year's large ensemble show, he returns to Newport with his unusual small group, the Claudia Quintet (and a sixth member on piano). The band's latest release What Is The Beautiful? sets poems by Kenneth Patchen to music; much like the album, vocalists Kurt Elling and Theo Bleckmann stand and deliver on stage.

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Newport Jazz Festival
6:08 pm
Sun August 5, 2012

Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors, Live In Concert: Newport Jazz Festival 2012

Credit Erik Jacobs for NPR
Saxophonists Lihi Haruvi (left) and Matthew Halpin (center) and violinist Alex Hargreaves (right) of The Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors perform at the 2012 Newport Jazz Festival.
  • Berklee Global Jazz Ambassadors Live From Newport

Boston's esteemed Berklee College of Music, just up the road from Newport, has produced top jazz musicians for decades. Driven by the leadership of Panamanian pianist Danilo Pérez, the school has expanded its jazz vision internationally, developing an initiative to recruit from and bring on tour around the world. Berklee's current Global Jazz Ambassadors are joined here by professional musician Adam Cruz, whose shimmering 2011 debut album Milestone showed off his talent both in front of the band and behind the drum kit.

Personnel

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