Comics used to be seen as cheap throwaway entertainment for children and teenagers. But over the last few decades, comics have grown up; they're even released in longer formats, on nice paper with hard covers, as graphic novels.
Daniel Clowes is one of the artists cited for turning the form into serious art — in fact, the art has gotten so serious that his work is now in a museum. Clowes is one of the best-known comic artists working today, with two of his books made into Hollywood films: the Academy Award-nominated Ghost World and Art School Confidential.
In past wars, the U.S. practically dismantled its military after the troops came home. But today, says MSNBC News anchor and writer Rachel Maddow, we find ourselves in a state of almost permanent war.
In her new book Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power, Maddow invokes Thomas Jefferson, pointing out that one of Jefferson's main concerns was the danger of having a large military.
In this photo taken June 14, 2011, a damaged sign for Joplin High School (transformed into "hope" with tape) is seen in front of the school. The school was one of three in the city destroyed by an EF-5 tornado that wiped out much of the community.
Credit Charlie Riedel / AP
Students carry donated supplies to a classroom on the first day of school at a temporary high school in a converted big-box store in Joplin, Mo., last August. School started on time in the district nearly three months after an EF-5 tornado devastated much of the city and killed 161 people.
Graduation is supposed to in part be about celebrating the future, but last year in Joplin, Mo., shortly after the high school graduation ceremony, an EF-5 tornado — the highest-strength rating — destroyed one-third of the city and killed 161 people, including one teen who had received his diploma that day.
Joseph Arradondo assists his son Nasir, 2, on the sidelines of his daughter's soccer game in Brooklyn Park, Minn. Arradondo attended Co-Parent Court about a year ago and says the court helped with communication between him and Nasir's mother.
Credit Jeffrey Thompson/MPR News
Joseph Arradondo walks with son Nasir, 2, and daughter Nevaeh, 9, before Nevaeh's soccer game.
Across the U.S., 40 percent of children are now born to unmarried parents. This demographic shift, primarily among younger, low-income parents, can pose a challenge to a child support system designed chiefly to extract money from paychecks.
A court in Minneapolis is now trying a new approach, one that's about more than just the money as it attempts to keep both parents involved in the lives of their kids.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks in a video that is part of the company's prospectus for investors. By remaining a privately held company, Facebook has helped boost the popularity of secondary stock markets.
Credit Facebook
In filing for its imminent initial public offering, Facebook included this sample of a stock certificate. The company's stock has been sought by investors on private markets.
Very soon, Facebook will go public. That means anyone will be able to buy shares of the social networking giant on the Nasdaq exchange. But sophisticated investors have already been buying pieces of Facebook and many other hot tech stocks, on private exchanges.
And now it seems that trading in private company shares is poised to grow, thanks to recent changes in the law.
Researchers say our brains are probably wired from an evolutionary sense to encourage running and high aerobic activities. Above, a man runs past the Sydney Harbour Bridge on April 22.
Endurance athletes sometimes say they're "addicted" to exercise. In fact, scientists have shown that rhythmic, continuous exercise — aerobic exercise — can in fact produce narcoticlike chemicals in the body.
Now researchers suggest that those chemicals may have helped turn humans, as well as other animals, into long-distance runners.
The man behind the research is University of Arizona anthropologist David Raichlen, a runner himself. He does about 25 miles a week.
When it comes to walking, the easy part is understanding the benefits: Regular, brisk walks can strengthen our bones, help control blood sugar, help lower blood pressure and cholesterol, and the list goes on. The hard part is finding the time to fit it in.
Engineering physical activity back into Americans' daily lives is the goal of an educational campaign launched by Kaiser Permanente,an Oakland, Calif.-based health plan.
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson was nominated as the Libertarian party's candidate for president at their national convention in Las Vegas over the weekend.
Somewhere on the path to the White House this year, a powerful set of ideas began to creep into the mainstream debate over which direction the country will take.
These are ideas that not too long ago were written off as marginal, or even worse, a little kooky. They come from Libertarians: free and open markets and extremely limited government. Those ideals are now becoming more mainstream and are influencing the Republican Party.
Taylor Mali travels the country speaking to teachers' groups and recruiting the next generation of classroom teachers with his "1,000 Teachers" campaign.
Forty years ago Sunday, history was made at Carnegie Hall.
On May 6, 1972, comedian Groucho Marx made his debut at the famed New York venue to a packed house. Tickets sold out as soon as it was announced.
Marx was 81 at the time and had been out of the spotlight for many years. His one-man show only toured a handful of venues, and his Carnegie Hall show was later released as an album called An Evening with Groucho.
This past week, charges were filed against members of the Florida A&M marching band in the hazing death of a former member. In recent weeks, there have been a string of hazing scandals on campus. In April, five Boston University students were bound and beaten in a fraternity house basement. And Rolling Stone magazine recently profiled a Dartmouth student's humiliating hazing experiences.
But as New Hampshire Public Radio's Dan Gorenstein reports now, all of this attention may be a good thing.
She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk through the door. That's the starting sentence for Round 8 of Three-Minute Fiction. That is our contest where we ask you to write an original short story that can be read in about three minutes. We are no longer accepting submissions for this round.
Our readers from across the country are almost done going through all of the more than 6,000 submissions this round. So let's hear a few samples of their favorites so far.
Members of the Greek neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party celebrate in Thessaloniki on Sunday. Golden Dawn is now set to enter parliament for the first time since the end of the military junta in 1974.
According to exit polls, angry Greek voters have overwhelmingly punished the two major parties that endorsed draconian international loan agreements.
There is no front-runner in sight, but the fringe parties on the left and the right that strongly oppose the bailout terms have benefited the most.
The socialist PASOK and the conservative New Democracy parties that have alternated for four decades — and uneasily co-governed for the last six months — are imploding.
The end of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar's 35-year career representing Indiana in the U.S. Senate could be imminent.
A new Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll shows the octogenarian trailing State Treasurer Richard Mourdock by 10 percentage points ahead of Tuesday's GOP Senate primary. The survey also finds that the venerable Lugar is increasingly viewed by home-state voters in a negative light.
Well before night fell stateside, the "supermoon" was already a star. Cameras from Tokyo to Athens gazed into its light, just a little bit brighter than usual.
It was enough to inspire some beautiful photos, so we thought we'd share what we've found.
When Hilary Mantel's new book opens, the spark has gone out of Henry VIII's second marriage. His roving eye leaves Anne Boleyn and begins to settle on Jane Seymour, another woman at court. The monarch doesn't go to a marriage counselor or divorce lawyer, not when Thomas Cromwell is his chief adviser.
Bring Up the Bodies is the sequel to Wolf Hall, which won the Man Booker Prize and worldwide acclaim. Itis also the latest in a planned trilogy about Cromwell.
If life is a ball game, Mike Pesca is our umpire, calling the shots as he sees them. Pesca is NPR's sports correspondent and WEEKEND EDITION's guide to the intersections between sports and life, and he joins us now. Hey, Mike.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.
MARTIN: OK. So, this week baseball in the headlines and steroids - back in court again. Give us a rundown of what's happened.
And in case you missed it, the Libertarian Party held its national nominating convention in Las Vegas yesterday and chose a former Republican named Gary Johnson as its presidential nominee. Meanwhile, in Sparks, Nevada, supporters of Republican presidential contender Ron Paul dominated the state's GOP convention with Paul himself addressing the gathering. NPR's David Welna has more.
