Mary Louise Kelly

The world-famous Bolshoi Theatre is a Russian icon. But a new staging of the ballet Anna Karenina takes the beloved Russian epic — and the theater — into the 21st century. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Bolshoi principal dancer Olga Smirnova.

Ahead of Sunday's presidential election in Russia, NPR spoke with a Putin supporter, an opposition supporter and a Russian who sees no point in voting.

When Russians head to the polls to vote for president on Sunday, thousands of election observers will be watching for fraud. The head of an election watchdog group in Moscow and a woman who blew the whistle on election fraud in 2011 talk about what it means to watch the election.

Before the Soviet period, "Russian food had color," says Vladimir Mukhin of Moscow's world-famous White Rabbit restaurant. He aims to honor those flavors, as well as locally source his ingredients.

The Kremlin controls every aspect of the Russian presidential election — it chooses the opposition candidates, controls the media and even decides just how big Vladimir Putin's victory should be.

Reports say national security adviser H.R. McMaster may be on his way out. Also, Ian Talley of The Wall Street Journal discusses sanctions on Russia, which is holding an election Sunday.

Lyudmila Savchuk infiltrated an online troll farm in St. Petersburg. "That feeling from the Soviet times — I can feel it everywhere," she tells NPR.

President Trump has nominated Gina Haspel, a 33-year veteran of the CIA, to lead the agency. Before she can begin that role, she must first be approved by the Senate.

Rateliff discusses his songwriting process on Tearing at the Seams, the latest album with his band, the Night Sweats.

Jason Matthews wrote the novel behind a new motion picture where a Russian spy (played by Jennifer Lawrence) is trained in the dual arts of seduction and espionage.

Feras Fayyad's Last Men In Aleppo goes inside the Syrian city at a time when it was being reduced to rubble by government bombings.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, about his new book, Directorate S: The C.I.A and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, 2001-2016. The book picks up the narrative of the CIA from where Coll's previous book Ghost Wars left off.

Activist-artist Tanzila Ahmed's snarky cards challenge stereotypes about Muslim-Americans. "With humor, you're able to sneak into people's consciousness and get them to think differently," she says.

"It's a really radical and ugly, difficult process that, you know, great beauty comes from." The folk singer discusses her new album, By The Way, I Forgive You, with NPR's Mary Louise Kelly.

The famous fossil calls the Chicago Field Museum home and is moving from the main exhibit hall to a private suite on the second floor.

The true-crime series re-examines the killings of 28 young black males. "It was the largest task force ever assembled ... it ended up getting the nation's attention," co-creator Donald Albright says.

These shoes for shoes latch onto your first pair via Velcro straps. The brand's publicist says they are practical, not just fashion for fashion's sake.

A former reality TV star with a huge social media following, Ksenia Sobchak is a candidate in Russia's elections next month. She has a political pedigree, too: Her father was Vladimir Putin's mentor.

When he started writing the cookbook, chef James Syhabout went to his ancestral homeland, Laos, to sample the food. Now, he hopes to introduce more people to the cuisine.

Rachael Denhollander was the first woman to file a criminal complaint against former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. She will be the last survivor to speak at his sentencing hearing in Michigan.