NPR’s ‘Hard Times’ Series Reporters Begin Journey

Millions of Americans are hurting financially, and they’re worried about their future. Fourteen million people are unemployed, and millions more are realizing that the jobs and the income and the home values they once had may never come back. NPR has been reporting these stories for years, but in November, two reporters take the story [...]

Ohio Teachers Caught In Middle Of Labor Campaigns

Putting The Name Back In The Fame

On-Air Challenge: You will be given the name of a famous person without the first and last letters of their first and last names. Determine the missing letters to add onto the name. For example, if you are given “err row,” the answer would be “Jerry Brown.” Last Week’s Challenge from listener Douglas Heller of [...]

In ‘Blue Nights,’ Didion Delivers A Mother’s Eulogy

“Let me try again to talk to you directly.” This is a pivotal line from Blue Nights — and a terrifically blunt expression of intention from its author, Joan Didion. For most of her career, Didion’s voice has been a distinct one, pitched between hot topics (the ’60s, political upheavals, existential crises) and cool detachment. [...]

Official: No ‘Silver Bullet’ To Solve Housing Crisis

Earlier this week, President Obama announced a plan to help homeowners refinance their mortgages. The White House says it will help millions of people hold onto their homes through a government-backed modification program. But critics are skeptical the plan will be a success, in part because of the dependence on the good will of banks [...]

Spy Satellite Engineer’s Top Secret Is Revealed

Every day for decades, engineer Phil Pressel would come home from work and be unable to tell his wife what he’d been doing all day. Now, Pressel is free to speak about his life’s work: designing cameras for a top-secret U.S. government spy satellite. Officially known as the KH-9 Hexagon, engineers called it “Big Bird” [...]

Suicide Bomber Kills 13 In Afghanistan

A Taliban suicide bomber slammed a car packed with explosives into a military convoy in Kabul on Saturday. At least 13 people were killed, including five coalition troops and eight civilian contractors, NATO said. NATO initially reported that all 13 killed were service members, but after further identification, it confirmed that eight were civilians working [...]

The Funny 50: A Cavalcade Of Comic Writers

Writer and comedian Andy Borowitz has been telling jokes for most of his life. He tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that he initially got into comedy for one simple reason: girls. In addition to using his jokes to charm women, Borowitz has also written for The New Yorker and The Borowitz [...]

Why The Haves Have So Much

The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week showing that the gap between wealthy and poor Americans has become much wider than it once was. What’s behind that expanding income gap? Federal tax policy is part of the story. Those at the top of the income ladder have been the biggest beneficiaries of tax [...]

New Water Map Washes Away An Urban Legend

A new, revised map of San Francisco has hit the stands. It’s not a street map or a bus map; it’s a map of the city’s underground waterways, and it includes a change to what could be San Francisco’s oldest urban legend. The map is the work of creek geologists Janet Sowers and Christopher Richard. [...]