Interviews

Ted Kaczynski is flanked by federal agents as he is led from the federal courthouse in Helena, Mont., on April 4, 1996. Kaczynski is now serving a life sentence in prison for the bombings.

Fresh Air Weekend: Capturing The Unabomber; 'Sour Heart'; Comic Bridget Everett

10:21am August 26, 2017

FBI profiler James R. Fitzgerald explains how linguistic work led helped unmask the Unabomber. Maureen Corrigan reviews Jenny Zhang's debut story collection. Everett discusses her work in Patti Cake$.

Queue Listen Now

Jason Smith, winner of Food Network Star, season 13.

National

Kentucky Chef Charms — And Cooks — His Way To Food Network Victory

7:00am August 26, 2017

by Robin Young

Cafeteria manager Jason Smith didn't have any formal culinary training, but he did have a dream: to be a star. And now he's "happier than possum eating a sweet tater pie."

We're all a confusing mixture of an array of impulses...our nature is to be context dependent on our behavior. - Robert Sapolsky

Robert Sapolsky: How Much Agency Do We Have Over Our Behavior?

9:13am August 25, 2017

by NPR/TED Staff

Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky says nearly all aspects of human behavior are explained by biology: from developments millions of years in the past to microscopic reactions happening in the present.

Queue Listen Now

What Makes A Great Relationship Between President And Congressional Leader?

4:54pm August 23, 2017

NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Thomas E. Mann, resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley, about the relationships between presidents and congressional leaders.

Vann Newkirk: 'Most Of My Life I Didn't Know Confederate Statues Could Come Down'

4:54pm August 23, 2017

Vann Newkirk is an African-American who grew up in Rocky Mount, N.C., a town with a Confederate monument. Newkirk writes for the Atlantic about how his view of the statue in his hometown evolved.

The past few weeks have revitalized debates across the country about what role Confederate monuments play in commemorating U.S. history.

What Our Monuments (Don't) Teach Us About Remembering The Past

4:01pm August 23, 2017

A history professor who studies the politics of memory tells us what the United States can learn from how Germans remember their history.

Queue Listen Now

For 30 years, Daryl Davis has spent time befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. He says 200 Klansmen have given up their robes after talking with him.

National

How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes

6:34pm August 20, 2017

by Dwane Brown

One by one, Daryl Davis has befriended KKK members over the past 30 years. The more they got to know the African-American musician, the more they realized the Klan was not for them.

Queue Listen Now

Author Max Brooks has done extensive research on preparing for widespread catastrophe. He's now a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

Fresh Air Weekend: Novelist Max Brooks; 'What She Ate'; Poet Molly McCully Brown

1:36pm August 19, 2017

Brooks discusses Minecraft: The Island. Maureen Corrigan recommends a book about the appetites of notable women. Brown, who has cerebral palsy, imagines life inside the "Virginia State Colony."

Queue Listen Now

National

On Isolation and Belonging: Stories We Tell Ourselves 25 Years After High School

3:22pm August 18, 2017

by Rachel Martin

It's been 25 years since NPR's Rachel Martin graduated from high school, and it got her wondering about how people think back on — and are shaped by — their teenage selves.

Queue Listen Now

White supremacists descended on Charlottesville, Va., to protest the pending removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee in the city's Emancipation Park.

'We're Not Them' — Condemning Charlottesville And Condoning White Resentment

6:42pm August 17, 2017

A scholar and a journalist offer context and analysis on the events in Charlottesville and the politics of white anger.

Queue Listen Now