Search results for

From Spanish lullabies and moonlit nights, to the fluttering wings of a persistent little barn owl, NPR Music's Tom Huizenga and host Guy Raz spin a mellow mix of new releases.

Railroad tycoon Leland Stanford drove the golden spike that connected the country's first transcontinental line in 1869, setting off decades of fierce competition for routes to the Pacific. Historian Walter Borneman follows the rails in his new book, Rival Rails: The Race to Build America's Greatest Transcontinental Railroad.

The interview with the Daily Show host that was originally broadcast Oct. 4 has been re-edited for Friday's Fresh Air; it features material cut from the original broadcast because of time constraints.

Oncologists would receive a set fee for certain cancers under this plan, which is being tested at five participating practices. Proponents say that this new strategy aims to identify the best medicines and cut back on profits doctors make by dispensing in-office chemotherapy drugs.

Doctors are leaving private practices in large numbers and going to work for hospitals. Last year, hospitals hired half of the new doctors just out of medical school. Hospital administrators say having more doctors improves care.

The vaccination rate for measles, mumps and rubella fell about 3 percentage points for 2-year-olds in 2009. Insurers said paranoia about side effects are to blame for the decline. Still, more than 90 percent of the children got MMR shots.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has witnessed seminal events in U.S. history, from growing up in segregated Alabama to helping plan the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Her new memoir describes how her parents helped her reach the White House.

Bob Mondello looks at a new documentary about the economic meltdown and examines where it falls in a spectrum of current fact-based films.

In an interview with Terry Gross, taped in front of a live audience in New York City, the Daily Show host deconstructs his upcoming "Rally to Restore Sanity" on the National Mall and explains how The Daily Show comes up with material.

In the middle of the 20th century, more than 6 million African Americans left behind everything they knew in the South and headed to the North, Midwest and West Coast. That "Great Migration" is the subject of a new book by Isabel Wilkerson, called The Warmth of Other Suns..