Sufjan Stevens is a classically trained singer-songwriter whose recent work has leaned symphonic. Son Lux is a classically trained beatmaker whose solo albums do indeed evoke luxury. Serengeti is a self-trained rapper who creates voices for a panoply of full-fledged characters who range from scufflers to yuppies. Billed as s / s / s, this ad hoc trio has just released an EP called Beak and Claw that somehow synthesizes their specialties.
Rewinder operator John Danylieko moves a finished roll of currency paper from the paper machine. The roll will be cut into three narrower rolls before being cut into sheets.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
Crane & Co. Vice President Doug Crane stands near a spool of paper used for $20 bills, as it spins at the company's Wahconah Mill.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
A "size press" coats the currency paper so that it's compatible with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's intaglio printing process.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
The rotary digester, about 15 feet across, uses steam and chemicals to cook away the contaminants in cotton and linen fibers.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
Several tons of linen fibers drain and cool down after having been cooked in the rotary digester, a giant steel ball.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
Marites Wilbur performs a final inspection on a ream of 32-note currency paper sheets.
Credit Robert Benincasa / NPR
A currency template is used to check that security features, such as a watermark of Andrew Jackson's image, are in the right place.
DALTON, Mass. – If you were driving through this small town along the Housatonic River in the Berkshires, here's something you might not think about: All the bills in your wallet are visiting their birthplace.
The paper for U.S. currency, the substrate of everyday commerce, has been made here since 1879 by the Crane family.
Crane & Co. vice president Doug Crane represents the eighth generation descended from Stephen Crane, who was making paper before the American Revolution.
He gave NPR reporters a behind-the-scenes tour and talked about his company.
E.J. Dionne Jr. writes a weekly column for The Washington Post on national policy and politics. He lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife, Mary, and their three children.
For years now, the Tea Party has held individualism up as the great American value. But Washington Post columnist and Georgetown University professor E.J. Dionne Jr. says that while Americans have always prized individualism, they've prized community just as much.
Colin Powell, then chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff under George H. W. Bush, makes a point about the entrenched Iraqi troops in Kuwait during a briefing at the Pentagon in January 1991.
Credit Mario Tama / Getty Images
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addresses the U.N. Security Council in New York on Feb. 5, 2003. He presented evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction — that turned out not to exist.
Credit Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008. "I'm proud of the vote I cast for him in 2008, I think he was absolutely the right choice," Powell says. When it comes to the 2012 election, Powell says he's "not prepared" to say who he'll be voting for.
If you're looking for advice on leadership, it's good to start with a four-star general. Colin Powell's new memoir, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, is a collection of lessons learned and anecdotes drawn from his childhood in the Bronx, his military training and career, and his work under four presidential administrations. The memoir also includes Powell's candid reflections on the most controversial time in his career: the lead-up to the war in Iraq in 2003.
Terry Dyroff, at home in Silver Spring, Md., got a PSA blood test that led to a prostate biopsy. The biopsy found no cancer, but it gave him a life-threatening infection.
There they go again — those 17 federally appointed experts at the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are telling American doctors and patients to stop routinely doing lifesaving tests.
A federal task force has concluded that men over 50 don't need a regular blood test for prostate cancer. Millions of men get the test every year. The task force says too many unnecessary treatments are being performed because of the test.
Today at All Things Considered, we continue a project we're calling NewsPoet. Each month, we bring in a poet to spend time in the newsroom — and at the end of the day, to compose a poem reflecting on the day's stories.
The end of Round 8 of our Three-Minute Fiction contest has finally arrived. With help from our readers at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, New York University, the University of Oregon and the University of Texas, at Austin, we've read through more than 6,000 stories.
Submissions had to be original works of short fiction — no more than 600 words. They also had to begin with this sentence: "She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door."
And if you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
Here's a terrible statistic: Once a veteran is home from Iraq or Afghanistan, he or she is more likely to die by suicide than from injuries sustained in the combat theater. There is new research that suggests those injuries may actually be contributing to the suicides.
Adam Lambert captivated America in 2009 when he almost won American Idol. Lambert was brash, likable and glamorous, but he soon became better known for being the first openly gay Idol contender.
Though Lambert finished as the runner-up, his popularity and talent won him a recording deal. He released his second studio album, Trespassing, this week — just a few months after his 30th birthday.
