Search results for

NPR producer Art Silverman uncovers New Jersey's filthy situation: the Passaic River. U.S. manufacturing was jump-started along its banks. Now the river is so toxic, part of it is a superfund site, and much of the rest is, as one writer puts it, "a toilet."

Hamburg-born Astrid Kirchherr met the Beatles in 1960, before they were famous. She took some of the earliest photographs of the group and was engaged to Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bassist, before he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1962.

Songwriter Hugh Martin co-wrote the Christmas tune that Judy Garland made famous in the 1944 classic Meet Me in St. Louis. Martin, who recently released a memoir, explains how he came up with his famous lyrics.

Susan Stamberg first broadcast her mother-in-law's "sounds terrible, tastes terrific" relish recipe on All Things Considered in 1972. This year, she asked rapper and chef Coolio to taste the Pepto-Bismol-hued Thanksgiving dish: "The color is a little weird, but it was actually quite good," he reports.

Officials from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank are in Dublin to discuss the Ireland's financial crisis. The country in slipping deeper and deeper into debt as a result of trying to rescue its banks, which were heavily over-exposed after Ireland's housing "bubble" burst. There are concerns in financial markets that Ireland might eventual be unable to pay its debts, and worries in Europe that Ireland's crisis could lead to another loss of confidence on the euro.

The Roosevelts' unorthodox marriage was equitable, sexually open — and spanned four decades. Hazel Rowley profiles the uncommon union of a four-term president and his first lady in Franklin And Eleanor: An Extraordinary Marriage.

Financial officials will be taking a close look at Ireland's broken banking system. A big part of their mission is to restore confidence in the bond market and stop Ireland's malaise from spreading to other eurozone nations.

Gordon's Lord of Misrule and Smith's Just Kids were the big winners at the National Book Awards in New York. We were there to capture the laughter, the tears and the free caviar.

Oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee chronicles how our understanding of cancer has evolved in his new book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.

The British government has reached an out-of-court settlement with a number of Guantanamo detainees who alleged they were tortured. The detainees say that British agents either arranged or knew about their mistreatment, and the group has been suing the government for compensation. Press reports say ministers decided it was better to pay large sums of money to the detainees, rather than have details of security service operations aired in open court.