Search results for

Robert Siegel talks with Adam Davidson from Planet Money team about this week's cluster of positive data on the health of the U.S. housing market. Davidson says the strength of the housing sector is now irrefutable, even though a broader economic recovery is still years away.

Louisiana officials say they identified for the first time a dangerous form of amoeba in a municipal water supply. It was found after a 4-year-old boy died of a brain infection caused by the amoeba. They say this may make it easier to diagnose cases of encephalitis with unknown causes.

Two years ago Pakistan's Punjab province was hit with one of the world's worst dengue outbreaks. This year the number of recorded cases has plummeted. Many leaders credit a mobile phone app that tracks mosquito populations and city workers' efforts to contain them.

Secretary of State John Kerry will go to Geneva to meet with his Russian counterpart to discuss the diplomatic alternative in which Syria would turn over its chemical weapons. For analysis on that proposal, Steve Inskeep talks to former state department official and ambassador Nicholas Burns. He is now a professor at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

When dictionaries add trendy words like "twerk," they're prioritizing the fleeting language habits of the young, says Geoff Nunberg. And our fascination with novel words tends to eclipse subtle changes in the meanings of old ones — "which are often more consequential," he says.

NPR's Scott Simon speaks to Matt Ripa of the Catholic University of America about finding one of the dresses Judy Garland wore while filming The Wizard of Oz.

NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks to the Guardian's Sirin Kale about her investigation into where cats go when we're not looking.

Poet Adrian Matejka used to be a DJ — and when he got stuck in pandemic-induced misery, it was music that lifted him up and helped him finish writing his latest book, Somebody Else Sold the World.

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with Team USA CEO Sarah Hirshland about prepping for this year's Olympics in Tokyo and what the event will look like with COVID-19 precautions such as having no spectators.

The eight short stories in Yoon Choi's extraordinary collection splinter out in unexpected ways, shifting focus from a single life to decades of complex family history.