All Things Considered

The Supreme Court engaged in a lively debate Wednesday when it heard oral arguments in a case testing whether the 2006 Stolen Valor Act is constitutional. The law makes it a crime to lie about military honors.

Border patrol agents along the southwest border will collaborate with the U.S. military this month.  From the Fronteras Changing America Desk, Monica Ortiz Uribe reports the joint operation will involve 500 soldiers.

Mexican election officials have been pushing to get more Mexican expats to register for their country's presidential election. But figures released last week show only modest gains in the number of absentee ballots requested worldwide... and a drop in applications from Mexicans living in the U.S.

Before the rise of Def Jam as hip-hop's definitive record label, there was Profile, which helped shepherd in some of the genre's early shifts in sound and style. A new two-CD anthology, Giant Single: The Profile Records Rap Anthology, chronicles the label's 15-year history and legacy.

Get ready to dance, because it's Mardi Gras — a day to cut loose before Lent begins. In New Orleans, that means a day of parades, costumes and music everywhere you turn.

For the members of Galactic, Mardi Gras actually started on Monday, with an "annual gig that goes until the sun comes up at local club Tipitina's," saxophonist and harmonica player Ben Ellman says. For the long-running New Orleans funk band, it's one of the biggest gigs of the year.

When Hollywood imagines the future, from Logan's Run to Avatar, it tends to picture living spaces as sterile and characterless, without any cultural clues to the person who lives there. No record library, no DVDs, no Hemingway on bookshelves ... often no bookshelves.

Host Audie Cornish talks with writer and director Barak Goodman about his latest project, Clinton, part of the American Experience: Presidents series. The first of two installments airs Monday night on PBS.

Oil-rich Venezuela is awash in hundreds of thousands of homeless. Many find places to live where they can — in half-finished shopping malls or under the grandstand at a race track. The huge number of homeless has become an election issue for President Hugo Chavez, who is seeking his fourth, six-year term.

When Brian O. Selznick wrote The Invention of Hugo Cabaret — a graphic novel about an orphan in 1930s Paris — he imagined the secret spaces of a Paris train station. For inspiration, he visited Grand Central Terminal in New York City. But the scenes in the book — hidden tunnels, secret rooms, the giant clock tower — were all drawn from Selznick's imagination and later turned into the movie Hugo by Martin Scorcese, which is nominated for 12 Academy Awards.

Florida's legislature has released its new legislative and congressional maps as part of the once-every-decade redistricting process, and the lawsuits are already flying. Democrats and watchdog groups say the new maps violate constitutional amendments that require districts to be drawn without regard to political parties or incumbents. The process is likely to be tied up in the courts for months, but the proposed maps are already having an impact — including forcing Tea Party favorite, Congressman Allen West, to leave his old district for one that's friendlier to Republicans.

Host Audie Cornish talks with Eric Westervelt about the decision on whether to grant Greece another bailout, this time worth $171 billion.

J.D. Salinger famously refused to sell the film rights to The Catcher in the Rye, saying it was "unactable." It's true the subtleties of such great novels can get lost in translation. But I thought I'd take a look at three of my favorite novels that have never made it to the multiplex in wide release. Each of these will transport you to another time and another place.

One of the most talked about personalities on the Republican presidential campaign trail, Callista Gingrich, rarely says a word. That hasn't kept her out of the spotlight, though. From their hair to their home life, potential first ladies get attention on the campaign trail.

Sunday the world lost a man who elevated a simple arcade game into an American obsession. Steve Kordek was Mr. Pinball. National Pinball Museum founder David Silverman talks to guest host Mary Louise Kelly Kordek and his legacy.

It was at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, N.J., where Whitney Houston first learned to sing, and it was there that friends and family gathered on Saturday to say goodbye to the pop superstar.

The star-studded service lasted more than three hours. Among those in attendance were Dionne Warwick, Kevin Costner and Alicia Keys.

The market for children's books is huge: Consumers buy $3.1 billion children's books annually. Now, with e-books and apps taking off, there are new opportunities to turn traditional story books into interactive experiences. Guest host Mary Louise Kelly talks with Dan Poynter, consultant and publisher at Para Publishing, and Roxie Munro, an author and illustrator of more than 30 children's books, about where children's books are headed.

In a victory for the White House, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed an extension of the payroll tax cut on Friday after weeks of refusal. Host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about the political reasoning behind the vote.

In the violence stricken city of Ciudad Juarez, one industry is making a strong and sudden comeback: nightlife. Thanks to police protection in certain parts of the Mexican border city, business owners have decided to reopen.  

As Monica Oritz Uribe reports for the Fronteras Changing America Desk, that means recently abandoned hot spots for clubs and bars have come alive again.

Two years ago after Arizona passed its tough immigration law S-B 10-70, many musicians chose to boycott the state.

From the Fronteras Changing America Desk, Laurel Morales reports many of them are now putting Arizona back on their tours.

The activists who successfully led the campaign to recall former Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce ... are now running another campaign -- calling for the resignation of a sheriff with controversial immigration policies.  As Devin Browne reports from the Fronteras Changing America Desk, the strategy is consistent: Target immigration enforcement leaders, like Sheriff Joe Arpaio, WITHOUT talking about immigration.

Scientists have examined clues from the past to predict the west’s fire future. And they say in a study released this week that all signs point to more large-scale wildfires like last year's Wallow and Las Conchas fires. 

Laurel Morales reports for the Fronteras Changing America Desk.

Country Music Award winner Gretchen Peters had an eventful 2010: The BP oil spill washed up on her doorstep, a good friend committed suicide, and her son announced that he's transgender. The last of those in particular, she says, got her thinking about personal conflict.

The 2012 Academy Awards are fast approaching, but behind all the glitz and glamor of Hollywood there is furious lobbying going on for that golden statuette. Robert Siegel talks with Christy Grosz, the awards editor at Variety, about the ins and outs of Oscar campaigning.

A number of Greeks are struggling to get by as the country's economy falters, including a group of middle class families in one Athens apartment building. They save they've lost hope they'll ever have a decent life again.

Melissa Block talks to E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution and Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor at the National Review, about the showdown between Republican presidential contenders Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney in Michigan and Arizona ahead of those states' primaries, and the extension of the payroll tax cut through the end of the year.

A recent analysis by the New Mexico Recycling Coalition shows that access to recycling has nearly doubled in the last four years.  KUNM’s Sidsel Overgaard has more.

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