Fresh Air

Whether it's the folk-protest music of DeMent, the cutting-edge blues of War or the hard-charging Americana of Price, these three artists create music that stands out.

Poverty, by America author Matthew Desmond says if the top 1% of Americans paid the taxes they owed, it would raise $175 billion each year: "That is just about enough to pull everyone out of poverty."

Crudup stars as a fast-talking salesman in the retro-futurist Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow! He won an Emmy for his role as a cynical TV executive in the series The Morning Show.

Drag queen Bella DuBalle speaks out against the new Tenn. law. Maureen Corrigan reviews Nora Ephron's Heartburn (reissued) and Jenny Jackson's Pineapple Street. Brown reflects on playing bad guys.

This new series, based on Richard Russo's 1997 novel Straight Man, stars Odenkirk as a tenured English professor who struggles to navigate the tiny fiefdoms and giant egos of academia.

Sandler will be awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on March 19. He spoke to Fresh Air in 2019, along with writer/directors Josh and Benny Safdie, about their film Uncut Gems.

Yeoh felt relieved when she first read the script for Everything Everywhere All at Once: Finally, here was a film that cast a middle-aged mother as an action hero. Originally broadcast April 2022.

DuBalle says the legislators behind a new law criminalizing public drag shows don't understand the art: "They think that every drag performer is doing something hypersexual or obscene."

When it came out in 1983, Nora Ephron's comic novel became an instant bestseller. Now newly released, Heartburn pairs well with Jenny Jackson's smart comedy of manners, Pineapple Street.

Many of Ricardo Nuila's patients at Houston's Ben Taub Hospital are dealing with serious illnesses as a result of not being able to access basic preventive care. His new book is The People's Hospital.