Credit Mito Habe-Evans / NPR

Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.

One of the nation's most notable music critics, Powers has been writing for The Record, NPR's blog about finding, making, buying, sharing and talking about music, since April 2011.

Powers served as chief pop music critic at the Los Angeles Times from 2006 until she joined NPR. Prior to the Los Angeles Times, she was senior critic at Blender and senior curator at Experience Music Project. From 1997 to 2001 Powers was a pop critic at The New York Times and before that worked as a senior editor at the Village Voice. Powers began her career working as an editor and columnist at San Francisco Weekly.

Her writing extends beyond blogs, magazines and newspapers. Powers co-wrote Tori Amos: Piece By Piece, with Amos, which was published in 2005. In 1999, Power's book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America was published. She was the editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of the 1995 book Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop and the editor of Best Music Writing 2010.

After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, Powers went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California.

The Two-Way
4:25 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

New Evidence In Trayvon Martin Case: Martin Had Drugs In System

Credit Sanford Police
A photocopy of a picture of George Zimmerman taken the night of the shooting.

Originally published on Thu May 17, 2012 9:06 pm

A huge trove of documents has been released by prosecutors in the Trayvon Martin case. Among the biggest revelations so far is that the autopsy reveals Martin had THC in his system. But police said the shooting was "ultimately avoidable."

ABC News, which is digging through the documents, reports:

"The autopsy report shows traces of the drug THC, which is found in marijuana, in Martin's blood and urine.

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It's All Politics
4:12 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

Billionaire Donor Joe Ricketts: From Behind The Scenes To Center Stage

Credit Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images
Joe Ricketts, whose American Film Company produced The Conspirator, arrives at the film's premiere during the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010.

Originally published on Fri May 18, 2012 8:04 am

Research News
4:10 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

Ancient Deep-Sea Bacteria Are In No Hurry To Eat

Originally published on Thu May 17, 2012 6:16 pm

Back when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, some hardy bacteria took up residence at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Eighty six million years later, they're still there. And a new study says they're living out the most Spartan lifestyle known on this planet.

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The Record
4:05 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

The Many Voices Of Donna Summer

Originally published on Thu November 8, 2012 3:36 pm

Pop singer Donna Summer, whose long career began in the 1960s and reached its apex in the disco era of the '70s, died of cancer on Thursday at her home in Naples, Florida. Summer was 63 years old. According to Billboard magazine, the singer born LaDonna Gaines had 32 singles that charted in the Hot 100. Fourteen of them made it into the top 10. To hear Sami Yenigun's appreciation of Donna Summer's life and career, as heard on All Things Considered, click the audio link.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

'Polisse': In Paris, A Thin Bleu Line

As humane as it is disturbing, Polisse rifles the files of Paris' Child Protection Unit in search of successes, failures and all the shades of ambiguity in between. If the movie's jumpy edits and raw emotions jangle the nerves, that's intentional: This documentary-mimicking drama is designed to evoke the experience of working a beat that can never become routine.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

A 'Hysteria' Epidemic, And A Notably Electric Cure

Originally published on Fri May 18, 2012 10:34 am

Hysteria, a disappointingly limp ode to the invention of the vibrator, plays like a Merchant Ivory Production of Portnoy's Complaint. Watching it, you'd never know that this revolutionary discovery, by allowing women to pleasure themselves, hammered a crucial nail into the coffin of 19th-century patriarchy. A boon to bluestockings and unsatisfied wives alike, the device rocked sexual politics, even if its full repercussions were not immediately understood.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

'Elena': A Femme Fatale, In The Rubble Of Perestroika

On its surface alone, Andrey Zvyagintsev's Elena is an intensely compelling slice of noir about moral rot and class warfare in post-Soviet Russia. Deeper down, the movie seethes quietly with the moody influence of other East European masters of the timeless ineffable. If Zvyagintsev were a less inscrutable filmmaker, he might have titled his new film Crime Without Punishment — but we'll get to that.

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Movie Reviews
4:03 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

Board Game + Explosions + Aliens = 'Battleship'

Originally published on Thu May 17, 2012 5:13 pm

Read the comic book? Now catch the movie. OK, I get that. Comic books are practically storyboards. Natural transition.

Seen the TV show? Now catch the movie. Even better. Just make the screen bigger and beef up the storyline.

Played with the toys? Now catch the movie. Well, sure, why not let Hollywood's overgrown kids put digital oomph into playtime fantasies.

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Movie Interviews
3:59 pm
Thu May 17, 2012

'Polisse' Shows Child Abuse Cases With Gritty Realism

Originally published on Thu May 17, 2012 6:16 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel. As this year's Cannes Film Festival gets under way, the winner of the Jury Prize at last year's festival is opening here in the U.S. It's called "Polisse."

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "POLISSE")

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