Russell Simmons has been called the godfather of hip hop. He tells Steve Paulson he got his start selling street drugs as a teenager.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Audio
Olivia Laing talks about her book, "The Trip to Echo Spring: On Writers and Drinking."
Youngstown, Ohio is the center of the Rust Belt. During steel's heyday, Youngstown was a city of nearly 200,000. Now, it’s under 70,000. The steel mills closed in the 1980’s, people left, and no one replaced them. Steve Paulson sat down with urban planner Justin Hollander talk about what to do next - what Hollander calls "smart decline."
Tom Brokaw, former anchor and managing editor of NBC News, talks with Anne Strainchamps about the polarizing effects of the sixties.
Why are Cuba and the U.S. restoring diplomatic relations? Journalist Ann Louise Bardach says Cuba desperately needs to open up its economy now that its patron, Venezuela, can no longer play the role of sugar daddy. And Raul Castro is finally stepping out of the shadow of his ailing brother Fidel.
The Interrupters tells the moving and surprising stories of three "violence interrupters" who try to protect their Chicago communities from the violence they once doled out. They believe that violence spreads like an infectious diseases, so the treatment should be similar: stop the infection at its source.
Anne Strainchamps talks with two teenagers who were finalists in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science and Technology.
Nelson Algren wrote “A Walk on the Wild Side” and won the first National Book Award for “The Man with the Golden Arm,” but was too gritty for most critics
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