All Things Considered

Monday through Friday on News and Talk and News and Classical 3:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

On May 3, 1971, at 5 p.m., All Things Considered debuted on 90 public radio stations.

In the 40 years since, almost everything about the program has changed, from the hosts, producers, editors and reporters to the length of the program, the equipment used and even the audience.

However there is one thing that remains the same: each show consists of the biggest stories of the day, thoughtful commentaries, insightful features on the quirky and the mainstream in arts and life, music and entertainment, all brought alive through sound.

All Things Considered is the most listened-to, afternoon drive-time, news radio program in the country. Every weekday the two-hour show is hosted by Robert Siegel, Michele Norris and Melissa Block. In 1977, ATC expanded to seven days a week with a one-hour show on Saturdays and Sundays, currently hosted by Guy Raz.

During each broadcast, stories and reports come to listeners from NPR reporters and correspondents based throughout the United States and the world. The hosts interview newsmakers and contribute their own reporting. Rounding out the mix are the disparate voices of a variety of commentators, including Sports Commentator Stefen Fastis, Poet Andrei Codrescu and Political Columnists David Brooks and E.J. Dionne,

All Things Considered has earned many of journalism's highest honors, including the George Foster Peabody Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award and the Overseas Press Club Award.

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Firefighters Prevail In Fight for Health Insurance

By editor

Originally published on Wed July 11, 2012 2:33 pm

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It all started around a kitchen table in Custer, South Dakota. John Lauer, a 27-year-old seasonal firefighter for an elite U.S.

12:55 pm

Wed July 11, 2012

Sory Kandia Kouyaté: Guinea's Voice Of Revolution

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Credit Courtesy of the artist

Released last month, La Voix de la Révolution is a new compilation of songs by Sory Kandia Kouyaté, who died in 1977.

Credit

cover art for La Voix de la Révolution

By editor

Originally published on Wed July 11, 2012 2:33 pm

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Sory Kandia Kouyaté was one of the most celebrated singers in West Africa when he died suddenly in 1977. He was just 44, and given his spectacular voice, it's a safe bet that Kouyaté would have been an international star had he lived just a few years longer. Now, some of his finest recordings have been collected on a two-disc retrospective called La Voix de la Révolution.

10:51 am

Wed July 11, 2012

In France, The (Abandoned) Dog Days Of Summer

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Credit Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images

Dogs wait to be adopted at the Animals Without Home shelter south of Paris in Montgeron, France, in August 2010. France is among the European countries with the highest number of abandoned pets during the summer months, when people take long vacations.

Credit Joel Saget / AFP/Getty Images

A volunteer takes an abandoned dog for a walk at the Animals Without Home shelter in 2010.

Credit Eleanor Beardsley / NPR

Claire Brissard runs an SPCA shelter outside Paris. She says too many French equate a pet with a stuffed animal — to be thrown away when they get tired of it.

By Eleanor Beardsley

Originally published on Wed July 11, 2012 2:33 pm

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For Europeans, it's not uncommon to take a whole month of vacation in the summer. But the season can be a deadly time for the many pets left behind — permanently.

The abandonment of domestic animals by vacationers is a scourge in many countries across Europe. And in France, this summer isn't likely to be different despite campaigns by animal-rights groups against the practice.

2:14 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

Homeless Rural Vets Find A Place To Call Home

Credit Lucy Nalpathanchil for NPR

American Legion Post Cmdr. Mark Czmyr and his father, Navy veteran William Czmyr, originated the idea to create permanent apartments for homeless vets in Jewett City, Conn.

By editor

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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This month, more than a dozen homeless veterans will finally have a place to call their own, thanks to the American Legion.

The organization's post in a small Connecticut town has been working for a decade on a unique project to create not transitional but permanent supportive housing in their rural community.

For 55-year-old Army veteran Jeff MacDonald, the new facility in Jewett City, Conn., was like "winning the lottery."

2:13 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

NewsPoet: Paisley Rekdal Writes The Day In Verse

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Credit Ebony Bailey / NPR

Paisley Rekdal visits NPR headquarters in Washington on Tuesday.

Credit Laurel Dalrymple

NPR's Rick Holter will soon be leaving and moving to Dallas.

By editor

Originally published on Wed July 25, 2012 11:10 am

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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.

1:12 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

'Vultures' Swoop In For Deals In Debt-Ridden Spain

Credit Andrea Comas / Reuters/Landov

A "For Sale" sign hangs outside mostly empty apartment blocks in the Madrid satellite town of Sesena in February. Banks are trying to sell billions of euros worth of property left by bankrupt developers. This is attracting bargain-hunting investors from abroad.

By editor

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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Back in the day, Madrid's Palace Hotel was Ernest Hemingway's old haunt, or at least the bar was. Now, rooms at the posh hotel just down from the famed Prado Museum go for up to $6,000 a night. And gathering in its lobby these days? An altogether different type of foreigner: the kind in expensive suits.

"Probably they are institutional investors, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds," says Federico Steinberg, an economist at Madrid's Elcano Institute.

There's a lot of cash around the world, he says, and a lot of people looking for bargains.

12:57 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

Syrian Rebels Carve Buffer Zone Near Turkish Border

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Credit Adem Altan / AFP/Getty Images

More than 35,000 Syrians have sought shelter in Turkey. Most of the refugees at the Kilis refugee camp in southern Turkey are women and children.

Credit AFP / AFP/Getty Images

A member of the Free Syrian Army stands near a medieval castle outside Homs, a flashpoint for much of the recent fighting, last month. The Syrian army continues to wage offensives against the rebels in many places, but the rebels say they can move back and forth between northwest Syria and southern Turkey.

By Deborah Amos

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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At this isolated part of the Turkish border, there's just one Turkish guard, a fence and, beyond an olive grove, Syria.

The Syrian side is just a short walk, perhaps 10 minutes. The area looks completely calm and there is no sign of the Syrian military.

Abu Amar, a rebel who has fought in Syria for five weeks, walked across this field from the Syrian village of Atma, which is now serving as a rebel headquarters. He says much of the northwestern province of Idlib is now controlled by the rebels, and it has become easy to move back and forth between Syria and Turkey here.

12:43 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

Justice Delayed: After Three Decades, An Apology

Credit Carrie Johnson / NPR

Kirk Odom and his wife, Harriet, outside the H. Carl Moultrie Courthouse in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, the Justice Department said there was "clear and convincing evidence" that Odom is innocent of a 1981 rape and robbery, for which he spent more than two decades behind bars.

By Carrie Johnson

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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Nearly 31 years after he was convicted of rape and armed robbery, Kirk Odom on Tuesday all but won his fight to be declared an innocent man.

The Justice Department filed court papers saying, "There is clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Odom is innocent of the charges for which he was convicted," and apologized for the "terrible injustice."

12:42 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

Cycle Of Poverty Hard To Break In Poorest U.S. City

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Credit Kainaz Amaria / NPR

Devora Trapp, 24, picks up her 8-month-old son, Dardarius Taylor, late one evening at the Opportunity House's Second Street Learning Center, a 24-hour day care center for low-income families in Reading, Pa.

Credit Kainaz Amaria / NPR

Meghan Gonzales, 25, a mother of four, lived in a homeless shelter in Reading, Pa., a few years ago. She recently graduated from nursing school and now works full time in a nursing home.

Credit Kainaz Amaria / NPR

Tracy Boggs, 49, walks her daughter Emily, 7, to the Second Street Learning Center in Reading, Pa.

By Pam Fessler

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 8:31 pm

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In the middle of the night, most children are home in bed. But at the Second Street Learning Center in Reading, Pa., a half-dozen tiny bodies are curled up on green plastic floor mats, fast asleep.

Conversations are hushed. The lights are dim. At 1:30 a.m., day care worker Virginia Allen gently shakes two little sisters, snuggled under the same blanket, to tell them that their mother is there to pick them up.

12:12 pm

Tue July 10, 2012

A Twitter Conversation: #NPRCities Roundtable

Credit Peter Booth and Alexandra Booth / iStockphoto

By editor

Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 4:34 pm

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What do you think makes a better city? Do you like a mix of old and new on the same block?

Several urban thinkers joined us for a discussion on Twitter, including Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution, Carol Coletta of ArtPlace America, writer and blogger Aaron Renn, The Atlantic Cities editor Sommer Mathis and Diana Lind of Next American City.

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