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Remembrances
6:59 am
Tue June 12, 2012

'Dynasty' Costume Designer Nolan Miller Dies

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Originally published on Tue June 12, 2012 7:18 am

Renee Montagne has a remembrance of fashion designer Nolan Miller, who died last week at the age of 79. Miller was best known for his costume design for the 1980s prime-time soap opera Dynasty.

History
6:26 am
Tue June 12, 2012

50 Years Later, Mystery Of Alcatraz Escape Endures

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Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Alcatraz on the 50th anniversary of the escape of inmates Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Dave Widner holds up an article about his uncles, inmates John Anglin and Clarence Anglin.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Visitors to Alcatraz look down the hall that the inmates used to escape from their cells.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
U.S. Marshal Michael Dyke, the official investigator assigned to the case of the escaped inmates.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Anglin family members wore this shirt on the anniversary of the Anglin brothers' escape.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
The choppy waters around Alcatraz island.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Alcatraz on the 50th anniversary of the escape of inmates Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin.
Credit Annie Tritt for NPR
Marie Anglin Widner returned to the island where her brothers escaped.
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Originally published on Tue June 12, 2012 12:37 pm

Fifty years ago three men set out into the frigid waters of the San Francisco Bay in a raft made out of raincoats. It was one of the most daring prison escapes in U.S. history from what was billed as the nation's only "escape-proof prison" — Alcatraz.

Most people assume the men have been at the bottom of the bay or were swept out to sea since the night they broke free, tunneling out of their cells in part with spoons from the kitchen and climbing the prisons' plumbing to the roof.

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The Two-Way
6:19 am
Tue June 12, 2012

Syrian Children Are Being Killed, Tortured And Used As Shields, U.N. Says

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A Syrian boy sits in the rubble of house destroyed during a military operation in April in the town of Taftanaz, Syria.
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  • NPR's Deborah Amos, reporting from Damascus

After more than a year's worth of appalling news about atrocities in Syria as President Bashar Assad's regime cracks down on dissent, now there's this:

"New crises have caused enormous suffering for children and continue in 2012. In Syria, children were victims of killing and maiming, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, by the Syrian Armed Forces, the intelligence forces, and the Shabbiha militia.

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Song Of The Day
6:03 am
Tue June 12, 2012

The dB's: After A 25-Year Absence, A Vital Return

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The dB's.
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By Elizabeth Nelson Bracy

For even the most distinguished of bands, the phrase "first album in a quarter-century" is cause for concern. Who among us is anything close to what we were "back then"? By what means of dark magic could any group reunite after such a layoff and reproduce anything resembling its previous chemistry? Band reunions come and go, and most often the result is forgettable at best.

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Book Reviews
6:03 am
Tue June 12, 2012

Alan Furst's New 'Mission' Delivers Spy Thrills

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Alan Furst is the author of several novels including Night Soldiers, Dark Star and Spies of the Balkans.
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Originally published on Tue June 12, 2012 7:09 pm

Alan Furst is fixated on a place on the verge of all-out war — and his many readers are grateful for his obsession.

Furst is the wonderfully inventive author of a series of novels set in Europe on the eve of World War II. He's often been compared to John le Carre, Graham Greene and other masters of fictional espionage. But it's time to consider him on his own merits.

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