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Rock concert posters produced some of the most iconic art of the '60s. Then came a period of decline. But an explosion of indie bands producing their own CDs has revived the genre. Producer Scott Carrier of the Hearing Voices radio project offers a review of the book Art of Modern Rock.

Clever but not cloying, "Top of the Bottom" documents a pop singer's rise, rapid decline and resurrection to a more mundane new beginning. Harding tells a funny and gripping story about the margins of pop music, while providing a surprisingly convincing look at how and where dreams of stardom often end.

Suicide killed more U.S. troops last year than combat in Afghanistan, a trend that's likely to continue this year. The causes and remedies are complicated, but Fort Bliss in Texas has bucked the trend. Suicides have declined there, after implementation of an interactive suicide prevention program.

President Obama outlines his strategy for Afghanistan at a speech at West Point on Tuesday. Obama will likely face a skeptical audience; support for the war is in decline. Ambassador Wendy Sherman, special adviser to President Clinton, and Michael Gerson, chief speechwriter to President George W. Bush, offer their insight.

U.S. stocks have fallen again on further concerns that the credit crisis has gone global. At one stage, the Dow dropped almost 800 points before recovering later. The Dow declined 3 percent and the S&P 500 was down more than 3 percent.

Involvement in bowling leagues, bridge clubs, and other participatory groups has declined considerably in recent decades, but community choruses have bucked the trend. Commentator Michelle Mercer has noticed the connection between singing and happiness, as she shares in this postcard from her gleeful local chorus.

A man was stopped for smuggling at Los Angeles International Airport last summer. Not drugs, and not weapons -- but live plants and animals -- specifically, flowers and birds in his luggage and pygmy monkeys in his pants. Lynn Neary talks with Eileen Jurdgutis, a U.S. Customs Service Inspector at Los Angeles International Airport.

Brooklyn artist Nina Katchadourian has a novel solution to noise pollution caused by the tones of common car alarms. She's created a new kind of alarm that blares bird songs that more or less follow the same familiar sonic pattern of most alarms, but with a "natural" twist. NPR's Rick Karr reports.

Paleontologists say they've found in China the fossilized remains of a small flying dinosaur with four wings. Experts on the links between dinosaurs and birds say this could be one of the most important fossils ever found. They also say this fossil could turn out to be a fake. NPR's John Nielsen reports.

In Roshi Fernando's upper-middle-class childhood home, conversations about sex were taboo. But at 13, already a survivor of sexual trauma, she needed answers. Fernando turned to Maya Angelou's autobiographical I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and, in its pages, found comfort and strength.

Stanley Crouch, one of the nation's most prominent jazz critics, is the author of the just-released Kansas City Lightning -- part one of a biography of Charlie "Bird" Parker. Reviewer Craig Morgan Teicher says the story starts a little slowly, but when Parker picks up the saxophone, Crouch's writing cooks.

NPR's Jackie Northam reports a declining population has caused the state of Iowa to try to lure new workers. Many of the newcomers are from other countries, and the state has started to plan programs to deal with their needs. The immigrants are bringing new cultures to Iowa. Some people are unhappy about the changes.

A sharp drop in share prices sent Wall Street to its worst week since last August. Joel Naroff, chief economist for Commerce Bank, tells Jennifer Ludden the decline has been under way for months, and in part reflects investors' concerns about high oil prices.

The International Atomic Energy Agency warns North Korea to reconsider its decision last week to expel arms inspectors and restart its nuclear weapons program. But the IAEA's board of governors declines to refer the matter immediately to the U.N. Security Council for action. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.

A day after he handed his resignation to President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the war in Iraq wasn't going as well as had been planned, echoing President Bush's appraisal about recent progress in the conflict. Rumsfeld declined to give himself a performance grade.

A new documentary follows Indie singer-song writer Daniel Johnston's decline into mental illness. It combines standard documentary fare with Johnston's own recordings, taped over the course of 20 years. Los Angeles Times and Morning Edition critic Kenneth Turan reviews The Devil and Daniel Johnston.

Chang-Rae Lee is an award-winning author best known for his novels Native Speaker and The Surrendered. NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with Lee about his latest book On Such a Full Sea, a futuristic dystopian novel set in a declining America that's been repopulated by Chinese immigrant workers.

Those people who have contracted the H7N9 virus have become very sick. And unlike the older bird flu virus, this one shows some adaptation to mammals, making it a matter of concern. But it doesn't make chickens sick, posing unique difficulties in fighting this kind of flu.

Beloit, Wis., resident Joan Salzberg, discovered a green-breasted mango hummingbird feeding in her backyard. The bird is rarely, if ever, seen north of Mexico. It had clearly lost its way. Thanks to a concerted rescue effort — just in time for winter — the little hummer now calls a Chicago zoo home.

Host Lisa Simeone takes a tour of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art with curator Larry Bird, charting the birth and boom of the do-it-yourself art form called Paint-By-Number. She also has a hand in painting an outdoor banner on the Museum's facade, 40 feet up.