NPR Staff

Writer Nina MacLaughlin hit her low point producing a listicle of the world's 100 Unsexiest Men. Six years and a lucky Craigslist ad later, she's a carpenter and author of the new memoir Hammer Head.

A German-Syrian religious studies teacher was shocked when she heard that five of her former students had left Germany to join jihadist groups in Syria. "It felt like a personal defeat," she says.

Spencer is equal parts Little Richard and Iggy Pop, the funky, yelping frontman for the Blues Explosion. The band's new album is called Freedom Tower: No Wave Dance Party 2015.

Jay Jackson plays the hilariously odd newscaster on NBC's Parks and Recreation. But before he was a fake anchor, Jackson spent 22 years as a real TV reporter — and he became an actor by accident.

Spring is here, and a number of families are plotting road trips for school break.

Randy Olson, a Ph.D. candidate at Michigan State University and a self-proclaimed "data tinkerer," believes he's devised a route that could allow a family to hit a landmark in each of the Lower 48 states, ...

Growing up, writer Caryl Phillips sometimes felt like an outsider. "I think that's very commonplace in British life," he tells NPR's Scott Simon. "I certainly, as the child of migrants to Britain, felt that at times."

Phillips was born on St. Kitts, an island in the West Indies. But he ...

A few months ago, Craig Ferguson, host of The Late Late Show, interrogated a special guest: James Corden. When asked what he did for a living, Corden replied demurely, "I don't do anything at the moment."

That is set to change Monday night, when Corden succeeds Ferguson as the host ...

Shamir Bailey is only 20 years old, but he's already been acclaimed as one of the most exciting new pop artists to emerge this year. There's a lot of history to be found in his young voice: A little teenage Michael Jackson, a little early Nina ...

It started in December 2013. A 2-year-old boy in Guinea was running a fever. He was vomiting. There was blood in his stool.

He was most likely "patient zero" — the first case in the Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa.

At the time, no one knew what ...

Don Gonyea talks to Ray Benson, leader of the Austin-based band Asleep at the Wheel, about a new tribute to the late Bob Wills that features contributions by the musicians Wills helped inspire.

The Swedish singer says a conflicted relationship to her home country informs the sound of her music: "I don't feel free there, and that makes you write in a certain way."

How much does a bee sting hurt, exactly? How about a bullet ant bite? An entomologist has built an index ranking insect stings — after getting stung more than 1,000 times.

A mishap in the South African soprano's Metropolitan Opera debut still makes her laugh, but that night ended with a standing ovation. Now she's in Los Angeles for The Marriage of Figaro.

Following the Bloody Sunday crackdown in Selma, Ala., Martin Luther King Jr. called for support across the U.S. People of different races and religions flocked to the state. Three of them look back.

In The Battle of Versailles, fashion critic Robin Givhan tells the story of the groundbreaking runway show that pitched French couture designers against American up-and-comers.

As part of an experiment, the men and women of a Marine armor unit are being assessed on difficult physical tasks, such as hooking up heavy towing gear. The women are keeping up, but it's a struggle.

People don't always like what they see when they Google themselves. Sometimes they have posted things they later regret — like unflattering or compromising photos or comments. And it can be maddening when third parties have published personal or inaccurate material about you online.

In Europe, residents can ask corporations ...

On March 18, 1990, robbers stole $500 million in art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Author Stephen Kurkjian explains why anyone would bother to steal work so priceless it couldn't be sold.

Traditional country musicians, the kind who never get airplay on mainstream country radio stations, are thriving in regional scenes supported by devoted live audiences.

This is the first exhibit to focus on the time Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo spent in Detroit. It's a big step for the Detroit Institute of Arts as it recovers from the tumult of the city's bankruptcy.