NPR Staff

The death penalty is legal in more than 30 states, but the long-controversial practice has come under renewed scrutiny after a series of botched executions in several states last year.

Opponents of capital punishment argue that the death penalty undermines the fair administration of justice, as wealth, geography, race and ...

Michael Angelakos comes to terms with his mental health and dedicates parts of his new album, Kindred, to his wife.

In her new novel, Pleasantville, and on TV's Empire, Locke does her best to avoid simple stories. "You do some good stuff and you do some bad stuff," she says. "We exist in the middle."

Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, who will decide on a presidential run soon, is for a higher minimum wage and wants to increase Social Security benefits even though some would pay higher taxes.

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd has built his career on merging musical styles, places and times. For his latest album, the newly minted NEA Jazz Master worked in two old European instruments.

Aydian Dowling is leading the popular vote by a landslide in the magazine's annual "Ultimate Guy" contest. If he wins the judges' round, he'd be the first trans man ever on the magazine's cover.

The band is performing in its ethnic homeland for the first time, on the centennial of the Armenian genocide. Singer Serj Tankian says that as historical events go, this one couldn't be more personal.

Macaque monkeys born at the top of society live like royalty. The new film from Disneynature follows a monkey born at the bottom of the pile who struggles to makes a better life for her family.

What do Rapunzel, the Buddha and small-town America have in common? Deceptively safe spaces, says Steven Millhauser. The Pulitzer Prize winner's new short story collection is Voices in the Night.

A mountain lion was holed up under a house in Los Angeles for a little while last week, making headlines across the country.

But the puma, known as P-22, was already pretty famous. He's got his own Facebook fan page with more than 2,000 likes, plus a couple ...

The class of 2015 is nearing graduation. For students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., that day is May 9.

Seniors are excited — and they are getting antsy.

NPR's Weekend Edition has been following four of those seniors all semester: Taylor Davis, Ariel Alford, Kevin Peterman, and Leighton Watson.

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It's what every young girl is expected to do: Grow up, get married and have kids. Or is it? Writer Kate Bolick questions that social edict in her new memoir, Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own. She tells NPR's Rachel Martin that, growing up, the expectation that she'd get ...

Noah Wall is an experimental musician in New York, and his latest album is maybe his boldest experiment yet.

"I usually make sort of very meticulously crafted music, and I think that's important because this project is so different from that," Wall tells NPR's Rachel Martin.

The album, Live ...

By his own admission, author Jon Krakauer is an obsessive guy, and his obsessions often turn into books. His best-sellers include Into the Wild and Into Thin Air, both about man's battle with nature. But his latest book is about a far more intimate struggle. The title lays it out ...

Step aside, home chefs! The kitchen of the future draws near.

No, there's no hydrator from Marty McFly's kitchen in Back to the Future II. Right now, the chef of the future looks like a pair of robotic arms that descend from the ceiling of a very organized kitchen. ...

Channeling your art and music into another identity is not unusual for pop artists. Lady Gaga changes costumes and assumes different characters almost nonstop; musicians from Beyonce to David Bowie have released work under names meant to serve as their alter egos. But what ...

The series stars a blind superhero — but at first, it lacked audio descriptions for the visually impaired. Netflix has added that option, but the issue raises larger questions of online accessibility.

Susan Stamberg is an NPR "founding mother" and the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program. But her radio debut was not so glamorous: A fake weather report on a local radio station.

A star of molecular gastronomy, Homaro Cantu, 38, took his own life this week. Cantu owned a Michelin-starred restaurant, but he also wanted to cure world hunger and improve Americans' eating habits.