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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Bull Fights, Bankruptcy And A Damn Dangerous Book

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By editor

Originally published on Thu July 5, 2012 3:23 pm

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Ben Mezrich is the author of Sex on the Moon.

Around the time I turned 12, I figured out exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up: an alcoholic.

I didn't actually know what it meant to be an alcoholic, but I knew that one day, I would drink copious amounts and dash around the streets of Paris, preferably in the company of bullfighters, bankrupts, impotent newspaper correspondents, and morbidly depressed, exotically beautiful divorcees.

9:18 am

Thu July 5, 2012

After A Forced Abortion, A Roaring Debate In China

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Credit Quirky China News / Rex Features

Feng Jianmei and her husband could not pay $6,000 in fines for violating China's one-child policy. In June, when she was seven months pregnant, local officials abducted her and forced her to have an abortion, her family says. The case has provoked widespread outrage.

Credit Peter Parks / AFP/Getty Images

People wait to have their blood pressure checked in Shanghai in April. China's one-child policy is more than just a human rights issue; demographers warn that the low birth rate will result in a shortage of workers to drive the economy.

Credit Peter Parks / AFP/Getty Images

A mother and child walk in Shanghai. China's one-child policy has been in place since 1979. There's now a debate about whether the policy should be eased or dropped.

Credit Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images

Young and old exercise at the Temple of Heaven park in Beijing in October. Experts say China's health care costs will be difficult to fund due to the population imbalance.

Credit Frank Langfitt / NPR

Zhang Yanyun paints buildings in east China's Jiangsu province. He has three kids, but wishes he only had one because raising a child in China has become so expensive.

Credit Liu Jin / AFP/Getty Images

A mother feeds her child in Beijing, Oct. 24, 2011. Experts say many Chinese do not want to have additional children, regardless of official policy.

By Frank Langfitt

Originally published on Thu July 5, 2012 8:09 pm

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Deng Jiyuan and Feng Jianmei, a couple from northwest China's Shaanxi province, have a 6-year-old daughter. Under China's complicated birth calculus, they were barred from having another child. But they tried anyway.

"We planned this pregnancy because our parents are old, they want us to have another child," Deng, 30, explained by cellphone last month from his home in Shaanxi.

That decision led to a sequence of events that has ignited a firestorm and renewed debate over the country's one-child policy.

1:03 pm

Wed July 4, 2012

Fear Of Fires Fizzles Some July 4 Fireworks Fun

Credit Curt Habraken / AP

Susan Underwood prices fireworks, while her husband Michael (left) and Clint Simmons pace themselves with a snack and TV last month at their tent along Highway 416 in Sevier County, Tenn. Over in Middle Tennessee, the drought has led city leaders to ban fireworks this year.

By Blake Farmer

Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 1:59 pm

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Freddie Bowers and his dad, Larry, have sold fireworks in LaVergne, Tenn., for a lifetime. But, the sparklers are off limits this year since the region has had the hottest streak in recorded history and several small fires in the area have been blamed on fireworks.

For people in the fireworks business, Christmas usually comes in July. Only this year, three-quarters of the country are experiencing some level of drought and from the Mountain West to the Southeast, cities are temporarily banning fireworks.

12:37 pm

Wed July 4, 2012

Ex-CEO: Barclays Isn't The Only Bank At Fault

Credit Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images

Former Barclays CEO Bob Diamond leaves Parliament amid a crowd of reporters in London on Wednesday. Diamond, who resigned Tuesday, was questioned about a growing interest-rate manipulation scandal.

By Yuki Noguchi

Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 2:34 pm

The fallen leader of Barclays Bank got on the hot seat before members of the British Parliament on Wednesday. Robert Diamond, an American, resigned Tuesday as CEO of the bank — the latest executive to lose his job over an interest-rate manipulation scandal.

The scandal has not only consumed Barclays, it also threatens to engulf other international banks — and high-ranking government officials, too.

Diamond started his career at Barclays on Independence Day, exactly 16 years ago. On Wednesday in London, he set off some fireworks all his own.

12:01 pm

Wed July 4, 2012

Baseball's Teen Phenom Steals Home, And Hearts

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Credit Patrick Semansky / AP

Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper walks out of the clubhouse before an interleague baseball game in Baltimore.

Credit Rich Lipski / AP

Bryce Harper's legend grew when he stole home after being hit — deliberately — by a pitch from the Philadelphia Phillies' Cole Hamels on May 6.

By Joseph Shapiro

Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 1:03 pm

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Bryce Harper was 16 when he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, pictured swinging a bat in the desert and declared "Baseball's Chosen One."

10:55 am

Wed July 4, 2012

Medical Marijuana Use Sprouting In Israel

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Credit Uriel Sinai / Getty Images

Moshe Rute smokes cannabis at the Hadarim nursing home in Kibutz Naan, Israel. In conjunction with Israel's Health Ministry, the Tikkun Olam company is distributing cannabis for medicinal purposes to more than 1,800 people in Israel.

Credit Baz Ratner / Reuters /Landov

A worker tends to cannabis plants at a plantation in northern Israel. Researchers say they have developed marijuana that can be used to ease the symptoms of some ailments without getting patients high.

By Lourdes Garcia-Navarro

Originally published on Sun July 8, 2012 5:33 am

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Israel has become a world leader in the use of medical marijuana. More than 10,000 patients have received government licenses to consume the drug to treat ailments such as cancer and chronic pain.

But while the unorthodox treatment has gained acceptance in Israel, it still has its critics.

Susan Malkah breathes in the cloud of smoke from a plastic inhaler especially formulated for medical marijuana use. She has a number of serious ailments and is confined to a wheelchair.

9:24 am

Wed July 4, 2012

The Highwaymen: Segregation And Speed-Painting In The Sunshine State

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Credit Courtesy of Gary Monroe

The Highwaymen are a group of African-American artists based in Fort Pierce, Fla., who began painting in the 1960s. (Clockwise from top left: Harold Newton, James Gibson, Mary Ann Carroll and Al Black are just a few.)

Credit Courtesy of the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery

A.E. Backus with friends in his Fort Pierce studio

Credit Jacki Lyden / NPR

Highwaymen paintings hang in the background at Jetson's Appliance store in Florida.

Credit Alfred Hair / Courtesy of Gary Monroe

Credit Courtesy of the A.E. Backus Museum and Gallery

Spanish Bayonets on the Indian River. This painting by A.E. Backus suggests an influence on The Highwaymen

Credit Courtesy of Mary Ann Carroll/Gary Monroe/University Press of Florida

A painting by Mary Ann Carroll, one of 26 painters known as The Highwaymen, who were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004.

Credit Courtesy of Gary Monroe

Mary Ann Carroll is, to this day, the only female member of The Highwaymen. She is also a pastor, when she isn't painting, at her own church in Fort Pierce, Fla.

By Jacki Lyden

Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 1:03 pm

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In the 1960s and '70s, if you were in a doctor's office, or a funeral home, or a motel in Florida, chances are a landscape painting hung on the wall. Palms arching over the water, or moonlight on an inlet. Tens of thousands of paintings like this were created by a group of self-taught African-American artists, concentrated in Fort Pierce, Fla.

9:08 am

Wed July 4, 2012

New Subatomic Particle May Be Physics' 'Missing Link'

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This graphic depicts a proton-proton collision from the search for the Higgs boson particle.

Credit Denis Balibouse / AP

Fabiola Gianotti of the ATLAS group (left) and Joe Incandela of the Compact Muon Spectrometer team announced their findings during a presentation Wednesday in Switzerland.

Credit Fabrice Coffrini / AFP/Getty Images

British physicist Peter Higgs (right), who proposed the Higgs boson in the 1960s, speaks with Belgium physicist Francois Englert at Wednesday's event.

By Richard Harris

Originally published on Thu July 5, 2012 4:51 am

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Scientists have discovered a new subatomic particle with profound implications for understanding our universe. On Wednesday, they announced they've found a particle believed to be the long-awaited Higgs boson. Nicknamed the "God particle," it represents the final piece in a theory that explains the basic nature of our universe.

4:27 pm

Tue July 3, 2012

Did Roberts Flip On The Health Care Decision?

Credit Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

Since the Supreme Court's health care ruling, there's been a lot of speculation about whether Chief Justice John Roberts changed his mind during the course of deliberations.

By Nina Totenberg

Originally published on Wed July 4, 2012 11:00 am

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In the days since the Supreme Court's historic health care ruling, there has been a good deal of speculation about whether Chief Justice John Roberts changed his mind in the course of deliberations, deciding late in the game to uphold the constitutionality of most of the law.

Even before the decision was announced, conservative writers railed that liberals and the so-called mainstream media were trying to intimidate the chief justice.

2:59 pm

Tue July 3, 2012

Does Medicaid Make People Healthier?

Credit Karen Roach / iStockphoto.com

By Alex Blumberg

Originally published on Wed July 11, 2012 2:08 pm

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A while back, Robin Boros lost her job, and she and her husband couldn't afford health insurance.

One time, Boros passed out, and her husband called an ambulance.

"The hospital bill, it was atrocious," she says. "We couldn't pay it."

They never figured out why Boros passed out. But after that, she and her husband avoided going to the doctor. At times, she says, she even bought blood pressure medication on the street.

"That was awful," Boros says. "But you do what you got to do."

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10:58 am

Thu July 5, 2012