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4:00 am
Sat February 25, 2012

Shannon Powell: New Orleans Rhythm, Straight From The Source

Credit Clayton Call / Redferns
Shannon Powell performs with the Palm Court Jazz Band at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Originally published on Thu March 29, 2012 5:18 pm

It is said of Shannon Powell that he's part of New Orleans' musical DNA — that he knows things only local drummers know.

Powell, 49, is the A-list drummer in town. He's played with Dr. John, Harry Connick Jr., Nicholas Payton, R&B guitarist Earl King and Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

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Music Interviews
7:46 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Robert Glasper: A Unified Field Theory For Black Music

Credit Mike Schreiber
Robert Glasper leads his band through experiments in jazz, hip-hop, R&B and rock on his new album, Black Radio.

Originally published on Sat February 25, 2012 6:31 pm

When some of the biggest names in R&B and hip-hop are clamoring to be on a jazz record, you know you're dealing with a special kind of jazz musician.

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The Two-Way
6:46 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Gadhafi's Compound, Slowly Being Erased From History

Credit Marco Longari / AFP/Getty Images
Libyans attend the Friday market the gardens inside the Bab al-Aziziya compound in Tripoli, on Oct. 28, 2011.

"I don't know why the traffic is like this," he said. "It's Friday just before prayers; where are all these people going?"

My friend Emad and I had been driving around the perimeter of Bab al-Azizia, Gadhafi's notorious compound just outside downtown Tripoli. It was here that NATO concentrated many of its bombing runs, as did President Reagan in the 1980s. Now the outer walls are a crumbling mess, covered with anti-Gadhafi graffiti.

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Around the Nation
6:01 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

N.J.: NYPD Crossed The Line In Monitoring Muslims

Credit Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Mohamed El filali, of the Islamic Center of Passaic County, gathers with Muslim students and community leaders in Newark on Friday to address the monitoring of New Jersey Muslims by the NYPD.

Originally published on Fri February 24, 2012 8:37 pm

Ever since Sept. 11, the New York Police Department has been aggressively gathering intelligence to help prevent another terrorist attack.

Now, those tactics are provoking new controversy in New Jersey after The Associated Press published a confidential, 60-page NYPD report from 2007 containing detailed information on dozens of mosques and Muslim-owned businesses in nearby Newark.

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The Message Machine
5:57 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

2012 Political TV: Ads, Lies And Videotape

Credit Restore Our Future
An image from a superPAC ad attacking Newt Gingrich, whose campaign called on TV stations to pull the ad off the air.
All Tech Considered
5:19 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Google's Goggles: Is The Future Right Before Our Eyes?

Credit AFP / AFP/Getty Images
What would the world look like seen through Google's eyes?

Like flying cars and time travel, eye glasses with computing power have long been sci-fi fantasy, relegated to Terminator movies and the like. Now it appears that Google may be a few months from selling a version of their own.

Google glasses — which may be released as a "beta" product — could put smartphone capabilities such as GPS maps, weather, time, Web streaming and more inches from your eyeball.

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NPR Story
5:13 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

One Of Last Movie Theater Organs Pipes On

Seattle has one of the country's few working movie theater organs. Jim Riggs plays the theater's Wurlitzer organ while silent movies are screened. Recently he performed during a screening of 1927's Wings, the only silent film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Two-Way
5:10 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Syrian Official: Army Is Protecting Syrian People From Armed Groups

Credit Bulent Kilic / AFP/Getty Images
Zouheir Jabbour says many of the videos and images coming out of Syria are a fabrication. Here, a badly injured man lies in a bed at a makeshift clinic in the Syrian city of Idlib on Friday.

The charge d'affaires of the Syrian Embassy in Washington says all the reports coming out of Syria are "absolutely wrong."

Zouheir Jabbour told All Things Considered's Melissa Block that even the reports issued by the United Nations and the Arab League are wrong.

"In the time of computers, you can fabricate whatever you like and go to Al Jazeera and go to Al Arabiya and you can see all that fabrication," Jabbour said.

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The Two-Way
4:53 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Monsanto Agrees To Pay Up $93 Million In Agent Orange Settlement

We are getting more details about that preliminary agreement to settle an "Agent Orange" related class-action lawsuit filed against the Monsanto Company. We reported yesterday that Monsanto agreed to settle a case over pollution claims made on behalf of current and former residents of the small town of Nitro, West Virginia.

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The Salt
4:42 pm
Fri February 24, 2012

Menu Math: When Counting Fast Food Calories Requires A Calculator

Credit Ed Ou / AP
Calorie counts like the one on this McDonald's drive-thru in New York are intended to help people make healthier choices. But researchers say they're often too confusing.

It's a simple enough idea: Know how many calories are in those fast food meals, and you'll make a better choice between them.

But when students at the Columbia University School of Nursing tried to nail down the calories on 70 menus at 12 eateries in New York's Harlem neighborhood, they found it pretty much impossible, even with a calculator.

One big problem: Many items are listed with a calorie range, but with no clues as to how those ranges are determined. For example:

  • A bucket of chicken was 2,200 to 5,860 calories.

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