All Things Considered

Akash Kapur is the son of an Indian father and an American mother. In 2003, after working professionally in New York City for more than a decade, he decided to return to India. As he writes in his book, India Becoming: A Portrait of Life in Modern India, he arrived in a place he hardly recognized.

Writer Adam Gopnik describes the idea of his latest piece in the New Yorker: that the prime source of nostalgia in popular culture is usually the period 40 years beforehand.

Yesterday, three members of the Secret Service resigned, bringing to six the number of agents who have lost their jobs as a result of the prostitution scandal that rattled the agency last week. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with news analyst James Fallows of The Atlantic about that story and others.

Two years ago, Robert Bennett, a Republican senator from Utah, was voted out of office at the state's Republican convention. Bennett's friend, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, has worked hard over the past year to avoid the same fate at today's state convention. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks with NPR's Howard Berkes about the results of today's convention vote.

It was supposed to be a routine and quick bond hearing for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed teenager Trayvon Martin. Friday's court hearing was anything but routine; Zimmerman took the stand and apologized to Martin's parents.

This week, music is bringing Americans and Russians together in a way that policy discussions never can. And don't call that a cliche in front of the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

If U.S. relations with Russia have hit a sticky patch over Syria and other issues lately, that didn't stop the Chicago Symphony from thrilling a Russian audience this past Wednesday night, just as it did on its last visit — to the then-Soviet Union in 1990.

Tuesday night, Colorado Rockies pitcher Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher to win a Major League Baseball game at the age of 49. He pitched the Rockies to a win of 5-to-3 over the San Diego Padres. Melissa Block talks to Moyer about the game and his career.

If the rule of threes holds, it's a strange time to be a U.S. governor. From bears in bird feeders to snoozing to Springsteen, Melissa Block recounts a trio of oddball things governors from Vermont, North Dakota and New Jersey have had to deal with in the last week or so.

Oy, the things daters have to worry about these days. Not just how to dress, act and turn "no" into "go," but how not to become a chirp-chirp girl.

Our story begins last month inside a busy Washington, D.C. subway station plastered with posters of giant dollar bills. One of them says: "Tell Congress to stop wasting time trying to eliminate the dollar bill." Another asks: "Do you heart the dollar?"

Political fights in the nation's capital normally involve billions or even trillions, not single dollars. What's going on here?

I'm an English professor, and I spent the first 15 years of my career trying to write like one. You might be surprised by what that's like. We don't emulate the fiction writers we most admire. We too rarely practice what we preach to our composition students — namely that good writing is simple and direct. In fact, we're notorious for maze-y sentences and ugly jargon. The point seems less to attract readers with clear prose than to smack them over the head with a sign that says, "Aren't I smart?"

At the same time gasoline prices are soaring, the cost of electricity is falling. The reason? Cheap and plentiful natural gas. A utility in Massachusetts has just sliced rates by 34 percent. Coming out of a recession, the lower electricity prices are quietly boosting the economy and providing some welcome savings to businesses and families.

Dick Clark, affectionately known as the "world's oldest teenager," has died. He was 82, and had suffered a heart attack while in a Santa Monica hospital for an outpatient procedure.

Richard Wagstaff Clark became a national icon with American Bandstand in the 1950s, hosting the show for more than 30 years. Clark also hosted the annual New Year's Eve special for ABC for decades. He weathered scandals, hosted game shows and renewed his Bandstand fame with a new generation by producing the nostalgic TV drama American Dreams.