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In 1940, an oceanliner sailing on the North Atlantic was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sunk. The ship was transporting British children away from the German blitz to safety in Canada. Miracles on the Water by Tom Nagorski chronicles the disaster in harrowing detail.

In delivering the the National Endowment for the Humanities' Jefferson Lecture, author Tom Wolfe argued that the evolution of mankind was forever altered when it harnessed the power of speech.

With a style that's part Miles Davis, part Chet Baker, jazzman Enrico Rava is a legend in his native Italy. The self-taught trumpet player shares his passion by becoming a mentor to aspiring musicians.

Norway has launched a unique construction project on the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard, halfway between the Arctic Circle and the North Pole. It's an underground vault for agricultural seeds, a kind of Noah's Ark for millions of varieties of wheat, rice, and hundreds of other crops that farmers no longer plant in their fields. For a soft-spoken man from western Tennessee named Cary Fowler, it's the culmination of a lifelong -- and controversial -- campaign.

A day before the start of the Tour de France, star riders Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso have been banned from cycling's top event over doping allegations. Other competitors are also implicated. Phil Liggett of the Outdoor Life Network details the scandal for Madeleine Brand.

Singer Irma Thomas was among the New Orleans residents affected by Hurricane Katrina. She talks about the storm's impact and performs songs from her new album, After the Rain.

As Congress debates proposals to crack down on illegal immigration, major farm operations in the West say they can't hire enough immigrant workers, legal or otherwise. We talk to a job broker who's in the business of finding immigrants to harvest crops in places like Visalia, Calif.

Texas Icehouses — part town hall, part tavern, icehouses have been a South Texas tradition since the 1920s. Once a vital part of everyday local culture, a cornerstone of every neighborhood in San Antonio and Houston, they are a rapidly diminishing, endangered species. A journey into this Mexican, German, Tejano, Anglo tradition.

The janitors, restaurant workers, and other low-wage immigrants who've been demonstrating lately have almost no legal way to be in the United States. Instead, nearly all the permanent work visas issued each year are for highly skilled workers like computer programmers, university professors and nurses.

The combination of writing talent and juicy material on display in Sean Wilsey's memoir Oh the Glory of It All is what has author Curtis Sittenfeld singing its praises to others. The people and places described "come explosively and thrillingly alive," says the author of Prep.