NPR Staff

Years after her grandfather's death, Sarah Wildman discovered letters from a young woman he'd left behind in Vienna in the 1930s. So Wildman set out to find her grandfather's true love.

We're about to take a journey back in time, across an ocean and a continent. It starts with a mythical prince and ends with Dennis Hopper's 1969 film Easy Rider. Oh, and there are unicorns in there, too.

Our guide is Welsh singer-songwriter Gruff Rhys, of the band Super Furry ...

Nash says it took her a long time to see her comedic side as a gift, but she finally embraced it. Now her role as Nurse DiDi in the HBO comedy series has opened the door to more serious opportunities.

Ferguson, Mo., police statistics show the department arrests blacks at a higher rate than it arrests other racial groups. But that disparity is true for police departments across the country.

The muscle man with the ponytail was once on track to become Mr. America. But a car accident shattered Tony Little's hopes of competing. Just when he hit rock bottom, he got a life-changing idea.

Tom McGrath, an executive producer of Penguins of Madagascar who also co-directed the first three films in the franchise, says he came to voice the part of the penguin Skipper kind of by accident.

Thanksgiving traditions can be a bit inscrutable for people who didn't grow up in the U.S., like NPR producer Olly Dearden. Disgusted by the thought of sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows and confused by the pardoning of turkeys who've committed no crimes, Dearden talked with several experts in the field, ...

For all those who just can't bear to hear "Jingle Bell Rock" or any of the other Yuletide earworms that will invade shopping malls and radio waves in the coming months, Norway's Trio Mediaeval has some new old music for the holiday season.

The group's new album, Aquilonis, features ...

Marion Barry, the fiery Washington, D.C., politician who was famously re-elected after going to jail for crack cocaine possession, has died after months of battling health issues. He was 78.

The four-term mayor, who was still serving his third term on the D.C. Council, was famous for fighting for the ...

The 2010 book Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer was highly criticized this week; it shows Barbie designing a game, but relying on male friends to code it for her. So the Internet set out to fix it.

A photographer's journey along the U.S.-Mexico border turned up dramatic images of lost possessions. Those found items were later made into instruments that sound just like that desolate landscape.

The United States has seen many fundraisers headlined by an Obama in recent years, but this week it won't be the president or the first lady — it will be his step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, who is raising funds to build a school and hospital in her hometown, Kogelo, Kenya.

Obama, ...

Bryan Adams' "Summer Of '69" has inspired many a late night in a karaoke bar.

Now, the best-selling Canadian singer and songwriter does a little karaoke, of sorts, of his own. His latest project, an album of mostly covers called Tracks Of My Years, includes his versions of songs by ...

Cumberbatch stars in The Imitation Game, as the British mathematician who helped break German codes. "It's a war thriller, it's a love story and a tragic testament to a genius wronged," he says.

When an assisted living home closed in California, many residents were still there with nowhere to go. But a cook and a janitor stayed, without pay, and took care of them.

Since Oregon legalized physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill in 1997, more than 700 people have taken their lives with prescribed medication — including Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old with an incurable brain tumor, who ended her life earlier this month.

Advocates of assisted-suicide laws believe that mentally competent people who ...

The Republican from Idaho says actions like the one the president will take on immigration tonight "make our country less strong."

The veteran-penned short story collection and the nonfiction look at modern China and its citizens joined youth literature winner Brown Girl Dreaming and poetry winner Faithful and Virtuous Night.

Test your ability to tweet a recipe in 140 characters or less. Amateur cook and writer Maureen Evans tells us how she manages to do that, and breaks down her code in her Twitter cookbook, Eat Tweet.

A modern artist installed a high-tech brick path that glows in the starry night, an homage to one of Van Gogh's most famous paintings.