Congressman John Lewis (D-Ga.) became part of the civil-rights movement while he was a teenager. From 1963 to 1966, he chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. And he became a close associate of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Lewis has been a congressman since 1987.
Director George Tillman Jr.'s Notorious, which follows the life and death of the rapper Biggie Smalls, opens in theaters this weekend. David Edelstein has a review.
What's new on TV? A slew of new television episodes and series are premiering this weekend. David Bianculli reviews a sampling, including Friday Night Lights, The L Word, Big Love, Flight of the Conchords and the premiere of The United States of Tara.
Rock historian Ed Ward considers pop music produced at Ardent Studios in Memphis in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Much of the music wasn't heard any farther than the city limits.
Transportation expert Daniel Sperling estimates that the world's car population — which currently stands at 1 billion vehicles — is likely to double in the next 20 years. Sperling is the co-author (with Deborah Gordon) of Two Billion Cars: Driving Toward Sustainability.
Paul Eisenstein reports from the Detroit Auto Show on the state of the auto industry. Eisenstein has covered cars for over 30 years; he currently reports for the independent news service The Detroit Bureau.
Jeb Loy Nichols has recorded a half-dozen albums since the late 1990s and before that, fronted the band The Fellow Travelers. Rock critic Ken Tucker says Nichols' new album, called Parish Bar, coheres as one of his more adventurous musical experiments.
Rolling Stone contributing editor Steve Knopper chronicles the rise of the record industry — and its subsequent digital-age collapse — in his new book, Appetite For Self-Destruction.
Macroeconomist Dean Baker sees opportunity in the current economic crisis. In a recent editorial for The Guardian, Baker recommended that President-elect Barack Obama boost the economy by spending on national health insurance.
After 44 years as a newspaper man, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. makes his debut as a fiction writer. His new novel, Rules Of The Game, features an investigative reporter on the beat of a hotly contested presidential election.
John Yemma, editor of The Christian Science Monitor, discusses the paper's new publication model: It's moving the daily operation to the Web and converting its print paper to a weekly.
The seventh season of 24 premieres this Sunday. Critic David Bianculli assesses the four-hour, two-night return of counterterrorist Jack Bauer — who's got some new allies, and some new enemies.
NBC's newly appointed chief White House correspondent talks with Dave Davies about his new book, How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election.
The price of gold has risen 235 percent in the past eight years, but as journalist Brook Larmer and photographer Randy Olson report in this month's National Geographic, the environmental and human costs related to the mineral have never been higher.
The Homefront Collection, a new DVD set from Warner Home Video, showcases three World War II-era Hollywood musicals: This Is the Army, Thank Your Lucky Stars and Hollywood Canteen.
The award-winning mystery writer died from a heart attack on Dec. 31 at the age of 75. Westlake wrote more than 100 novels and numerous screenplays, including the Academy Award-nominated screenplay for The Grifters.
Maureen Corrigan reviews Jayne Anne Phillips' Lark & Termite, a novel that weaves together the story of an American soldier fighting (and dying) in Korea in 1950, with that of his family struggling with their loss nine years later.
