Search results for

Jackie Wilson was a singer's singer — admired by everyone from Elvis Presley to Van Morrison to Michael Jackson. His awe-inspiring falsetto powered 15 Top 10 R&B hits. But his stage show could make your jaw drop.

Secretary of State of Condoleezza Rice is making her first trip to Iraq as the nation's top diplomat. NPR's Peter Kenyon is in Baghdad, and he talks to host Liane Hansen about Rice's visit and the United States' efforts to combat insurgents along the Syrian border.

Rita Coolidge's 1977 solo album, Anytime Anywhere, sold millions of copies. Three singles made the top of the charts, including "We're All Alone." Nearly three decades later, Coolidge sings the same tune on a new CD of jazz standards.

Cohn's 1991 single "Walking in Memphis" made him an instant star: A sentimental Top 40 favorite and an enduring radio staple, the song was his ticket to Grammy-winning fame. Hear Cohn perform a concert from WXPN and World Café Live in Philadelphia.

Secretary of State John Kerry gave his first major foreign policy speech Wednesday at the University of Virginia. His comments come days before he leaves on his first trip as America's top diplomat. He's traveling to Europe and the Middle East.

Detroit's Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick learned Monday whether he'd face perjury or other related charges. A county prosecutor has been investigating the mayor after the publication of racy text messages allegedly written between him and a former top aide.

Christopher O'Riley, host of NPR's From the Top, considers Elliott Smith to be one America's greatest songwriters. Smith died in 2003 before ever achieving massive fame. O'Riley's latest release, Home to Oblivion, is a classical translation of Smith's work.

A year ago, Karen Schock's farm was mostly under water in southeastern Iowa; she could barely see the top of her windmill. Guy Raz checks back in with Schock, who, with her husband Bill, is still farming, bolstered by the support of their church community.

This week marked a new step in Michelle Obama's evolution as first lady. In her hometown of Chicago, she delivered one of the most emotional speeches of her career. Obama almost never ventures into the top political controversy of the day, but her role may be changing.

Soaring prices, lagging incomes and burdensome social security payments are the top issues for frustrated, cash-strapped voters. Stricter measures targeting foreign residents and visitors have also emerged as a key issue, with a surging right-wing populist party leading the campaign.

For the top brass of companies such as Dell and Hewlett-Packard, talk of cyberweapons and cyberwar could be abstract. But at a classified security briefing in spring 2010, it suddenly became quite real. "We can turn your computer into a brick," government officials reportedly told the startled executives.

In his new book The Beast, Salvadoran journalist Oscar Martinez narrates his eight trips on top of the freight trains known as La Bestia — a journey embarked upon by hundreds of thousands of migrants every year, across Mexico and up to the U.S. border.

Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski and other top officials tour the Prudhoe Bay oil pipelines, which have been crippled by corrosion discovered on Sunday. Lost production at Prudhoe Bay, America's largest oilfield, has sent oil prices to record levels.

So you know how, if someone comes by and taps the top of your open beer bottle, a volcano of brewski will explode? Well, it turns out that the physics involved are the same as what causes an atomic bomb to form a mushroom cloud. A scientist explains how it works.

Some of the worst-paid farmers in Ethiopia were able to get their bean to the specialty coffee ball and sell to top U.S. roasters like Stumptown. But it only happened after the growers got organized and attracted the attention of coffee prospectors from the U.S.

GlaxoSmithKline officials have admitted that some of the pharmaceutical company's top executives in China may have violated Chinese laws. Beijing has accused the company of engaging in a wide-ranging bribery scheme to boost sales and profits in the country. The company said it is cooperating with the investigation.

Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher met with Pakistan's new leaders Wednesday in Islamabad. Officials in the new government have indicated to the top senior U.S. envoys that the U.S. relationship with Pakistan will have to change.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is recommending the nation's top naval officer, Adm. Michael Mullen be nominated as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Peter Pace will not be reappointed to a second term. Jacki Lyden speaks with Chris Cavas, a reporter with Defense News.

Recycled blue jeans, solar panels and smart phones all helped make homes more energy efficient in this year's Solar Decathlon. Twenty teams are in the nation's capital, vying for the top prize in architecture, engineering and other fields. Winners will be announced later this week.

After weeks of controversy, the results of groundbreaking experiments that purported to show how to make stem-cell lines from individual patients using cloning techniques will be retracted. A senior author of the paper, a top South Korean researcher, admits that some of the results were faked.