Book Reviews
11:41 am
Mon June 18, 2012

'Beautiful Ruins,' Both Human And Architectural

In Jess Walter's new novel, Beautiful Ruins, there's a beaten-down character named Claire who works in Hollywood reading scripts for a living. Claire is inundated with reality TV show pitches, many of them featuring drunk models or drunk sex addicts — in short, scripts so offensive that, Claire thinks, to give them the green light for production would be akin to "singlehandedly hastening the apocalypse."

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The Two-Way
11:31 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Microsoft Promises A 'Major' Announcement; What Will It Be?

Credit Microsoft
Microsoft's Surface.

Originally published on Mon June 18, 2012 8:01 pm

Update at 7:23 p.m. ET. The Surface:

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Governing
10:53 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Undocumented Immigrants React To Obama Decision

Originally published on Mon June 18, 2012 11:58 am

President Obama announced Friday to let certain illegal immigrants stay in the U.S. Host Michel Martin continues to discuss the latest changes to immigration policy with lawyer Sarah Moshe and undocumented immigrants Gaby Pacheco and Jose Antonio Vargas. He wrote the latest Time magazine cover story about his life as an illegal immigrant.

Governing
10:53 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Will New Policy Reopen Immigration Debate?

Immigration lawyers are moving quickly in response to President Obama's decision to let certain illegal immigrants stay in the country. Host Michel Martin discusses the latest changes with immigration attorney Sarah Moshe and two undocumented immigrants: journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and immigration rights advocate Gaby Pacheco.

NPR Music Essentials
10:47 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Heavy Rotation: 5 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing

Originally published on Thu November 29, 2012 5:19 pm

There's no clear formula for why a new song catches fire at one of our partner radio stations. Sometimes it's a hook you can't get out of your head, and sometimes it's a tune's ability to distill a station's overall vibe into three sublime minutes.

We asked five stations to select a song currently blowing up on their airwaves and tell us why. For a limited time, you can download their answers — the results include new music from the smart Canadian pop band Metric, U.K. singer Lianne La Havas, folk newbie John Fullbright, funk collective Brownout and British pop group alt-J.

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Music
10:36 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Born on the Bayou, June 16

Swamp Pop, Zydeco, Creole, Cajun, Louisiana R&B, Blues and more.

Music
10:33 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Sound Club, June 16

Late night fun with dance remixes, jazz, rock, alternative, sound collage and more.

Music
10:31 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Freetown Radio, June 15

Freetown Radio is a free form, mixed bag of sounds showcasing music that is often neglected on commercial radio. Co-hosts Chas Justus and Roger Kash expose the intricate and subtle connections linking all genres of music from the dawn of recorded music early in the 20th Century to the so called "modern" sounds of today. Each week Roger and Chas deal with a specific theme and explore connections that transcend the boundaries of genre, exposing classifications as just marketing tools that record companies invent to sell records.

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The Salt
10:23 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Desert Plant's Potent Chemical Cocktail Makes Mice Go 'Ptooey'

Credit Michal Samuni-Blank / Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
Spiny mice eat the fruit of the mignonette bush but spit out the seeds
The Two-Way
10:20 am
Mon June 18, 2012

Obama's Played 100 Rounds Of Golf; Which Presidents Beat That?

Credit Chris Kleponis-Pool / Getty Images
Presidents Clinton and Obama during a round of golf last September.

On Sunday, President Obama played his 100th round of golf since taking office, according to CBS News' Mark Knoller — the White House press corps' keeper of all sorts of presidential factoids.

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