When property taxes go unpaid, the debt gets sold -- sometimes resulting in a bidding frenzy between America's largest banks and hedge funds. Investigative reporter Fred Schulte says unpaid tax bills as low as $300 have resulted in homeowners losing their properties.
Richard Holbrooke, an American diplomat who engineered the 1995 Dayton Accords that ended the war in the Balkans, died on Monday. He was 69. In 1998, Holbrook spoke to Terry Gross about his 13-hour negotiation with two indicted war criminals who led the Bosnian Serbs.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz recently attended the 2010 Musikfest Berlin's two-week long tribute to 85-year-old French conductor and composer Pierre Boulez. Schwartz says the musical tribute was "sonically ravishing, with endlessly inventive combinations of sound and texture."
Ballet's history is not just about choreography and technique -- it's also a history of nationalization, the changing ways we view the body, shifting gender norms and class struggles. Historian Jennifer Homans chronicles the art form in a new cultural history, Apollo's Angels.
The fading junior welterweight boxer Micky Ward was working in construction in the early '90s when he decided to give the ring one more try. That's the story of The Fighter, starring Mark Wahlberg. David Edelstein says the boxing film is a mess -- which he means as a term of endearment.
The jazz saxophonist and flutist died Thursday at age 85. Fresh Air remembers the musician, whose 1949 improvisation over "I'm in the Mood for Love" became a jazz staple, with highlights from a 1996 interview.
Hip-hop music grew from the streets of Harlem and the Bronx into a multi-billion-dollar industry. Dan Charnas chronicles how hip-hop producers and entrepreneurs changed the music industry and pop culture in The Big Payback.
Fresh Air's resident book critic selects her favorite reads from the year, including Patti Smith's moving memoir, a feminist slant on election season, a new history of labor unions.
Speaking Tuesday on Fox news, Sen. Joe Lieberman suggested that The New York Times' should be investigated for publishing leaked diplomatic cables. The New York Times' chief Washington correspondent, David Sanger, responds -- and explains what the documents reveal about foreign diplomacy.
A study of five U.S. allies who ended bans on gays openly serving in their militaries showed that the wide-scale disruptions feared by opponents had never materialized, says historian and study author Nathaniel Frank. He discusses his finding and what they suggest for efforts to end the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Set in 1976, Tanya Hamilton's Night Catches Us tells the story of former Black Panther Party member who are partly stuck in the past, even as they try to move on with their lives.
Novelist Walter Mosley explains how watching his mother's experience with dementia helped him craft his latest novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, which asks: Would you repair your failing memory if it meant your life span would also be significantly shortened?
The filmmaker was just 23 years old when she won South by Southwest jury prize for her second film, Tiny Furniture. The comedy stars Dunham and her real-live mom and sister playing fictionalized versions of themselves in their real-life apartment in New York City.
In Darren Aronofsky's ballet thriller, a repressed ballerina must surrender to her sexuality to master Swan Lake's leading role. Critic David Edelstein says the dramatic film is a "camp classic -- like Showgirls remade by Roman Polanski."
Fresh Air jazz critic Kevin Whitehead picks CDs, books and a DVD for the jazz lover on your list this holiday season. His selections include a book of Sonny Rollins photographs and music from the first season of the HBO series Treme.
West's new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, both chastises and praises the hip-hop singer for being an arrogant perfectionist. Rock critic Ken Tucker says it may be an example of "egregious self-aggrandizement," but it's also "superb music-making."
Critic John Powers has a theory about movies: The best gifts to give aren't necessarily the most recent hits. His 13 picks for the 2010 holiday season include a Charlie Chaplin classic, a Charles Laughton masterpiece and one of the greatest documentaries ever produced.
New York Times reporter Adam Liptak wrote recently that the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has become the most conservative court in living memory. Liptak discusses several recent decisions that have been unusually long -- but also vague and opaque.
Laura Hillenbrand -- the award-winning author of Seabiscuit -- has returned in fighting form with her latest nonfiction biography, Unbroken. The story of a pilot who survived a crash against all odds speaks to the indefatigable human spirit and our collective will to overcome.
100 years after his death, Mark Twain's autobiography was published the way Twain himself wished. Fresh Air's David Bianculli talks with Robert Hirst, of the Mark Twain Project, about editing and publishing Twain's work.
