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NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with Corinne Fleischer, the World Food Programme's Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe regional director, about what grain shipments from Ukraine means for some areas.

With her wispy, delicate voice, Dearie was a darling of the jazz world for decades. Her biggest hit was "I'm Hip," and she even recorded with Schoolhouse Rock. The cabaret singer and pianist died Saturday of natural causes in her New York City home. She was 82.

In "Maybe Tonight," Nicole Atkins' robust, sultry voice conveys vulnerability and confrontation, seemingly without effort. Imagine if Patsy Cline led The Shangri-Las, or if k.d. lang had been raised on Bruce Springsteen and '80s hair-metal instead of country music.

Ever since their smash debut CD Voices From Heaven, the Soweto Gospel Choir have spent years touring the world with their exhilarating brand of vocal fireworks. The group returns with a new collection of songs sung in English and some of the 10 other "official" languages of South Africa.

Produced by the legendary Steve Lillywhite, She & Him inaugurates the new World Cafe Lillywhite Sessions series from Avatar Studios. Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward seamlessly combine her syrupy-sweet voice with his simplistic yet stunning instrumentals on their debut, Volume One.

In his first public communication since December 2004, Osama bin Laden says in an audiotape broadcast that al Qaeda is preparing attacks inside the United States. The CIA has confirmed that the voice on the tape is that of the al Qaeda leader. The taped statement aired on Al-Jazeera Thursday.

Offered up with confidence and honesty, k.d. lang's deeply personal narratives invite listeners into an intimate world. Her glorious voice fuses country, jazz, and even Brazilian rhythms, and in a session on World Cafe, she plays songs from her new album, Watershed.

Holiday's voice was unlike that of any other singer in her time, and remains unmatched in style. She never simply sang a melody, but made every song her own by changing phrasing, sharpening or dragging out diction, or adding a little drama to a not-too-dramatic tune.

Guitarist and songwriter Erika Wennerstrom fronts the Cincinnati group with a sprawling voice that that simultaneously exudes both strength and grief. Their introspective third album, The Mountain, is a departure from previous albums' brighter, garage rock and chronicles a move from Ohio to Wennerstrom's new home of Austin, Texas.

Given four days to record a couple of songs for a film, Marketa Irglova and The Frames' Glen Hansard made a full-length record. The result is 10 quietly brilliant songs, each built around piano, acoustic guitar, violin, cello and the two headliners' soft, sweet voices.

Sasha Dobson carries on in the jazz tradition of past greats like Ella Fitzgerald, with a sultry voice and extensive performance experience, but she remains unconventional . Now 26, Dobson has been performing professionally since she was 16, in the process crafting a unique fusion of worldly jazz.

Sasha Dobson has spent the last ten years crafting a unique fusion of Brazilian and American jazz. Her sultry voice and extensive performance experience foretells success, especially with Modern Romance, which includes genre-bending covers of Duke Ellington and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Gorka's music demonstrates an easy melodic sensibility: Nothing is contrived or overproduced. His work is built around little more than his unmistakable voice and the simple, clean sounds of his guitar. Gorka performs a solo set from WXPN and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia.

As Stephanie McKay belts out harrowing scenes of teen pregnancy and black-on-black gun violence, she sounds like a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Yet as incendiary and forceful as her gripping voice remains, her wails and cries never overheat into a melismatic mess.

Fred Thomas' brooding voice in his solo record, Flood, is a departure from the uplifting indie rock of his other musical project, Saturday Looks Good To Me. Flood shows Thomas has a tremendous range as an artist, with a mix of quieter songs that are captivating and deeply personal.

It's somehow fitting that The Whigs' members reside in Athens, Ga., the flashpoint of '80s indie-rock. The trio's debut, Give 'Em All a Big Fat Lip, is a great and goofy exercise in nostalgia that combines the gravelly rock of The Replacements with the off-kilter pop of Guided by Voices.

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's "My love, if I die and you don't--" offers a clear-eyed tribute to everlasting love. But it's hard not to be moved listening to the late singer's gorgeous, smoky voice, as well as her unsentimental approach to music that already aches with yearning and loss.

The homemade solo country-noir of Gibson's debut gets fleshed out by a real band, featuring pedal steel, cello, trombone and guitar work from members of Baroness and Brokeback. Remaining front and center, though, is Gibson's voice, which remains as dark and thick as blackstrap molasses.

With each new album, the Oberlin-educated, Idaho-born singer-songwriter continues to develop his singular voice. So Runs the World Away, which can be heard here until its May 4 release date, defies categorization as much as it creates its own.

If you have a little one at home, there's a good chance you've heard the joyful voice of Elizabeth Mitchell. Mitchell has released some of the most uplifting kids music out there, and so it's appropriate that her new record is called Sunny Day.