Marathoner and Runner's World contributor Amby Burfoot talks about the vulnerability of running 26.2 miles of public space, the Boston Marathon as a holy grail and the importance of being cheered on. Burfoot won the Boston Marathon in 1968 and has run every five years since. He was there Monday.
"Accidental Racist" launched an Internet firestorm and threatened to overshadow everything else on the country singer's fine new album, Wheelhouse. Even in that polarizing song, Paisley's biggest sin is that he's well-meaning in a way that topples too easily into sentimentality.
In The Child Catchers, Kathryn Joyce explores the outsized influence of evangelical Christian groups on the overseas adoption industry. The adoption movement has orchestrated a boom-and-bust market that can exploit poor families in countries where regulations are weak and "orphans" may not actually be orphans.
Sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy talks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about Monday's events at the Boston Marathon, the place the marathon holds in the life of the city, its importance in the international world of running, and the history of attacks at sporting events.
A documentary airing tonight on PBS tells the story of the five young black and Latino men wrongly convicted of the 1989 assault and rape of a white female jogger in Manhattan's Central Park. Ken Burns made the film with his eldest daughter, Sarah Burns, and David McMahon.
In 2003, a hospital nurse named Charlie Cullen was arrested under suspicion of injecting patients with lethal doses of a variety of medications. He is now considered one of the nation's most prolific serial killers. Journalist Charles Graeber explains how the hospital system failed to stop Cullen.
Nearly 15 million Americans have a moderate to severe food allergy. In kids, the rate is on in 13. Kari Nadeau, who studies food allergies at Stanford, in currently testing a technique to desensitize children who have multiple severe allergies to foods like nuts, soy, milk, wheat and shellfish.
The director's latest cinematic meditation on the meaning of life stars Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Olga Kurylenko and Javier Bardem and revolves around the question of how we might locate the presence of God in the everyday and how we can accommodate ourselves to our expulsion from the Garden.
Mosaic Records has released Classic Earl Hines Sessions 1928-1945. a seven-disc showcase for the jazz pianist and bandleader. Hines' right hand played lines in bright, clear octaves -- and his left hand had a mind of its own.
In her new memoir, Shocked, Volk examines the two women who had a lasting impact on her as she began to parse who she was as a woman: her beautiful, critical mother, Audrey Morgen Volk; and the famous -- and unconventional -- haute couture designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
In the United States, an orphan disease is one that affects fewer than 200,000 patients. These conditions often involve chronic pain or fatigue, and can be controversial and difficult to diagnose. Yet they affect around 30 million Americans. Author Laurie Edwards is one such patient.
The CIA has morphed from a traditional espionage service concerned with stealing the secrets of foreign governments into an organization consumed with hunting down its enemies. New York Times journalist Mark Mazzetti chronicles this transformation in a new book, The Way of the Knife.
Cash spent half a century in the limelight as a country singer turned American icon. Between 1958, when he first recorded for Columbia, until 1986, when it didn't renew his contract, he recorded more than 50 singles and 60 albums for the label.
Handpicked by Walt Disney to be one of the original Mouseketeers, Annette Funicello was America's girl next door. She spoke to Fresh Air in 1994 about Mickey Mouse ears and why she went public with her multiple sclerosis diagnosis. She died Monday at age 70 from complications of the disease.
P.J. Hogan's new movie is madder than madcap, a zany, nonconformist boundary-pusher whose offbeat manner makes for a rich and grounded film. Toni Collete plays the part of a modern-day Maria von Trapp as if she has nothing to lose -- and Anthony LaPaglia shows his true Aussie accent.
The musician, songwriter, composer and producer has made a name for himself by playing with the like of Amanda Palmer. For his latest album, however, he found himself departing from a rock sound as he began writing his own orchestral arrangements.
In a new book, Washington Post economics writer Neil Irwin looks at an elite group of policymakers from around the word who manage the money supply, and explains how money can come from -- and disappear into -- thin air based on the decisions of these influential men and women.
As Deputy Director of President George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Kuo hoped to be a force inside the White House advocating for the poor. He left after two years, disillusioned and believing he had been used solely to recruit evangelical voters. Kuo, who died Friday at 44, talked to Fresh Air in 2006.
Fresh Air remembers the film critic and bon vivant Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, with a roundup of interviews from our archive -- one with Ebert alone, one with him and his late partner Gene Siskel, and two in which Ebert interviews iconic directors. Plus, critic-at-large John Powers discusses Ebert's 2011 memoir Life Itself.
As a Mormon missionary, Ryan McIlvain spent two years ringing strangers' doorbells, even as he experienced doubts about his own faith. He left the church in his mid-20s. McIlvain's debut novel, Elders, tells the story of two young Mormons carrying out their missions.
