Search results for

A miniature poodle is the upset winner of the nation's most prestigious dog show. Surrey Spice Girl, a 3 year old with black pompoms, beat out the favorites with her performance. Robert Siegel talks with Deborah Woods, author of Top Dogs: Making it to Westminster. Woods' book is published by Hungry Minds, January 2002.

Investigators looking into the space shuttle Columbia accident say NASA workers made safety a top priority, but may have become so comfortable with successful missions that they didn't keep track of small issues that can turn deadly. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Mike Luckovich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, got a behind-the-scenes look at the Pentagon this week. He was allowed to sit in on briefings with the defense secretary and top generals and came away with some surprising insights. Read his War Diary and see a sketch from his visit.

The new Israeli film Broken Wings has garnered international praise, winning top prizes not only in Israel but at film festivals in Toyko and Berlin as well. Critics say the melodrama about a dysfunctional family could take place anywhere. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a review.

In Nebraska, the governor's race has top billing, as polls show a close Republican contest between Charles Herbster, Brett Lindstrom and Jim Pillen.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell is resigning after four years in the agency's top job. His efforts to lift ownership restrictions on media properties earned him critics on both the left and right.

Pentagon top adviser and one of the chief architects of the war in Iraq, Douglas Feith, resigns. Feith, a staunch neo-conservative with close ties to Israel, is a controversial figure, especially for his role in the use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.

Guest host Jacki Lyden gets a demo of the Web site meetup.com from one of its co-founders, Scott Heiferman. The Web site has helped Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean move to the top of the fundraising list. But it also helps pug lovers, gardeners and knitters, among others, to "meet up."

Two worlds have come together in a rare teaching program at one of the nation's top universities. Students at Stanford University are reaching across a cultural divide to help tutor the Mexican immigrants who clean their classrooms and dorms.

In 2000, pianist Yundi Li took the gold medal at the Warsaw International Chopin Competition, becoming the first pianist in 15 years to be deemed worthy of the top prize. The young musician performs Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in NPR's Studio 4A.