NPR Staff

Small towns like Massena, N.Y., have been devastated by recent plant closures, and presidential candidates are blaming free trade agreements. Former factory workers admit they had a part to play too.

Researchers Pam Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer found that students remember more via taking notes longhand rather than on a laptop. It has to do with what happens when you're forced to slow down.

"We wanted to explore that quality of a newly born song and try to catch it," My Larsdotter says of the new album, which blends the duo's Scandinavian heritage with bluegrass, country and blues.

Network science: it can be used both to stop terrorists and predict television plotlines. Keith Devlin explains how it can be used to figure out the most important character in Game of Thrones.

Across the state, some argued to blow up the system, while others cautioned against a wholesale political revolution. But voters in both parties agreed: Government in its current form is not working.

Washington stars as Anita Hill in the new HBO film Confirmation. She was 14 during the 1991 hearings, and says it's the first time she remembers her parents having different points of view.

You may not think of tending a drawbridge as a dream job. But "executives who make hundreds of thousands of dollars do not have my view," says Barb Abelhauser. "And I'm getting paid to stop and look."

Food critic Laura Reiley of the Tampa Bay Times spent two months investigating where her local eateries were really getting their ingredients. Many of their "farm to table" claims proved bogus.

To exert control, the gangs targeted bus drivers. The ensuing bloodshed stopped the buses, tied the city in knots and vividly demonstrated why El Salvador has one of the world's highest murder rates.

Julian Fellowes' new novel is a twist on the form Charles Dickens made famous: the serial. Belgravia, the story of an ambitious family in 19th century England, will be released in chapters via an app.

Remittances — money sent home by migrants working abroad — add up to more than triple the amount of official foreign aid to developing countries. And that makes some people unhappy.

Nina Totenberg broke Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against Supreme Court Justice candidate Clarence Thomas in 1991. She reflects on the climate then and how she was "pilloried" for it.

"I've been fascinated for a long time about what it is that inspires people to become what they are," says the host of NPR's All Songs Considered. His new book, out now, is Your Song Changed My Life.

Jenna Cook returned to China at age 20 to search for her birth mother. What she found, above all else, was the collective pain of dozens of Chinese families who had given up children.

"I'm a very nostalgic person," the French musician says. "I just keep looking backwards all the time." The new album draws on the sounds of his roots in more ways than one.

Many teachers in urban schools don't understand their students or the places they live, says author and educator Christopher Emdin.

From a bland suburban upbringing, Elsa Dorfman emerged into a creative life inspired by her 6-foot Polaroid camera. And the famed Beat poet turned out to be the key to that astounding metamorphosis.

Even as the American agricultural industry is dominated by big operations, small family farms like the Jantzens' wonder what's next. So Katie, the family's eldest daughter, is eyeing a reinvention.

Tarica June wrote "But Anyway" in response to quickening change in District. What she didn't expect was the wave of positive feedback — especially from other gentrifying cities across the country.

"We know about dictators in Latin America," Mexico's former president, Vicente Fox, tells NPR. "So I really want American citizens to really consider, is that really the best option that you have?"