September 7, 2013 - 3:11am
In Australia's just-concluded national vote, conservative Tony Abbott has won enough support to become the country's next prime minister and end six years of Labor rule. That's the analysis from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation , which reports that voters' main issues were the economy and repeal of carbon and mining...
September 7, 2013 - 3:09am
Two days into the Toronto International Film Festival, I'm 10 films in. We'll talk more about all of these later, but it seemed only fair to share some basic impressions, since I'm certainly logging the seat time to earn them. So here are the 10 I've seen so far. Closed...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
This is the year of American artist James Turrell. Three major museums collaborated to give this one man thousands of square feet of exhibition space. Turrell's work is all about space, and light and perception. Indeed, the three big shows in New York, Los Angeles and Houston are kind of...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
Professional wrestling, known as lucha libre — literally, freestyle wrestling — is a big deal in Mexico. It's a sport that's generally associated with machismo: buff fighters with names like Nemesis and Aguila Imperial (Imperial Eagle) strut around in a rope-bound ring, wearing shiny spandex outfits and colorful masks. They...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
The superintendent of the Lancaster, Penn., school district is meeting with teachers and staff at George Washington Elementary. It's the start of a new school year, and he's trying to sound upbeat about the district's finances. "We continue to lose 5 and 10 percent of budgets each year," Pedro Rivera...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
Children's book author Sandra Boynton knows her way around Music Row. We meet in singer-songwriter Ben Folds ' studio, which is part of the old RCA Victor Nashville Sound Studios — birthplace of recordings by the likes of Dolly Parton and Joe Cocker. "First built by Chet Atkins and Roy...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
I was in a grocery store one night this week when a sturdy young man approached with a smile. "Do you remember me?" he asked. "Bini." Bini — Erblin Mehmataj — was a bony-shouldered 9-year-old boy with a full, toothy grin who lived in an Albanian Muslim housing complex in...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
Billy Crystal is ... 65. He feels that he's gone from being, as he puts it, "a cool Baby Boomer into a Diane Arbus photograph." He writes about his well-earned wrinkles and laugh lines in a memoir that takes him from his boyhood and bar mitzvah in Long Island, through...
September 7, 2013 - 3:00am
Weekend Edition gets a lot of emails that start like this: "Why don't you tell the truth about ..." The Kennedy assassination, Sept. 11, the Lincoln assassination, the birthplace of Barack Obama or John McCain, Pearl Harbor, Area 51, black helicopters or the moon landing — fill in the blank...
September 7, 2013 - 2:34am
There's something alluring and charming about Bombino , whose childlike face belies his fierce, hypnotic guitar playing. The first time I saw him perform, I found myself screaming his name at the end of every song — partly to praise his amazing jams, but also as an exercise in bonding...
