Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. The Tony Awards are this Sunday. They recognize excellence in American theatre and you might be interested to know that a number of African-American performers and plays that deal with race are nominated for honors, plays such as "Clybourne Park," an edgy take on integration and gentrification in a fictional Chicago neighborhood; and a new interpretation of a classic, the Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess."

Oscar Robertson had his legacy enshrined when he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame back in 1980. But more recently, he began advocating for regular cancer screenings after beating the disease. Robertson shares the tunes that continue to inspire him for Tell Me More's regular series, "In Your Ear."

Led by Benson Ramsey and David Huckfelt, ethereal folk-rock group The Pines makes its first appearance on Mountain Stage, recorded live at the Paramount Theater in Bristol, Tenn./Va. As a young boy growing up Iowa, Ramsey watched as his father — producer and guitarist Bo Ramsey — helped craft the definitive alt-country sound alongside Lucinda Williams.

United Nations monitors in Syria were shot at with small arms fire today as they tried to reach the scene of another alleged massacre, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said this morning.

At the U.N. General Assembly, Ban also condemned today's "shocking and sickening" reports about the killings of dozens. And, NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, he called this yet another "pivotal moment" that could see Syria fall into a full-blown civil war.

If you drive northwest on New Hampshire Avenue out of Washington, D.C., you'll pass a few shopping plazas, a freeway or two, a house of worship for nearly every imaginable denomination. Around the point where the suburban sprawl begins to thin out, there's a one-block-long dead-end street on the right called Spotswood Drive. That's where a man named Walter Salb once lived; he was a beloved and respected drummer, and by most accounts a larger-than-life character.

"Economic growth appears poised to continue at a moderate pace over coming quarters," Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is telling Congress this hour, and will be supported in part by additional "accommodative monetary policy" from the central bank.

While there's been a slowing in job growth, Bernanke says that Fed policymakers believe household spending has been "relatively well sustained" and are encouraged by "consumer spentiment [that is] ... up noticeably from its levels late last year."

The Television Critics Association (which I'm part of) has announced the nominees for its annual awards, which will be handed out during press tour in late July.