Some Indiana third graders are already planning for summer school. They're preparing to retake a new statewide test, which they'll need to pass to go on to 4th grade. Host Michel Martin speaks with StateImpact Indiana reporter Kyle Stokes and NPR's Tovia Smith about the effects of these tests on kids and implications for states across the country.
Westboro Baptist Church members travel the country holding up signs saying God hates everything from homosexuals to America. Recently, nine-year-old Josef Miles made his own sign which read "God Hates No One," and the photo of him next to the Westboro protesters went viral. Miles and his mother Patty Akrouche talk with host Michel Martin.
And now it's time for the feature we call In Your Ear. That's where we talk with some of our guests about the music they love. Today we hear the personal playlist of British actor Dev Patel. He's best known for his role in "Slumdog Millionaire," of course, but more recently starred in, "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."
Here's the music that inspires him on and off screen.
DEV PATEL: Hey, guys. My name is Dev Patel, and I play a character called Sonny in the movie "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."
If you had hoped to bid on the medical-lab vial that purportedly contains the dried remains of a blood sample from President Ronald Reagan taken on the day he was nearly assassinated in March 1981, you're out of luck.
The highly respected journalists at New Orleans' Times-Picayune last night found out the hard way — from another news outlet — that they're about to face deep staff cuts and that the newspaper will soon only print three days a week.
May is Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. All month, Tell Me More is talking to people who trace their heritage to that part of the world and have changed the game in various fields.
Astronauts on board the international space station got a chance earlier today to see the private unmanned Dragon spaceship that was launched on Tuesday by SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is living on the station, was talking to Houston's Mission Control when he suddenly reported that he had spotted Dragon. "I'm looking at Dragon right now," he said.
