More than 6,000 stories came in this round of Three-Minute Fiction - 6000. Amazing. The challenge this time, the story had to begin with the sentence: She closed the book, placed it on the table and finally decided to walk through the door. It's going to take us several weeks to read through those stories and find a winner, but for now, here are a few samples of what some of you did with that sentence.
James Brown used to tell people that even being stillborn as a child couldn't stop him. He rose to the highest heights in the music industry and stayed there longer than most. But in the end he succumbed to atrocious financial planning, a drug habit and a violent temper.
RJ Smith, author of the new biography The One: The Life and Music of James Brown,tells NPR's Guy Raz that Brown believed he was indestructible.
When the song "Wonderwall" hit the airwaves in 1995, Oasis was arguably the biggest rock band in the world. At the heart of the group were two combustible figures: Noel Gallagher, the main songwriter, and his brother Liam, the main singer. With their fiery tempers and frequent public outbursts, the two were on the covers of the tabloids as often as the top of the charts.
Oasis burned out quite suddenly a few years ago, with a now-famous meltdown backstage before a show in Paris.
This story is part of a Planet Money series on money in politics. Also see our story, "Senator By Day, Telemarketer By Night, and listen to us this weekend on This American Life.
Democrats love Nancy Pelosi. Republicans hate Nancy Pelosi.
One key reason for both the love and the hate: Nancy Pelosi is incredibly good at her job. And a huge part of that job is raising money.
Today at All Things Considered we continue a project we're calling NewsPoet. Each month we bring in a poet to spend time in the newsroom — and at the end of the day, to compose a poem reflecting on the day's stories.
From NPR News, this is All Things Considered. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
The Fair Labor Association, a labor rights group, has released its audit of Apple's largest supplier in China, Foxconn. The group found what it calls significant issues with working conditions at three factories there, including more than 50 violations of the FLA's code of conduct and Chinese labor law.
Until his early 20s, the only life Shin Dong-hyuk had ever known was one of constant beatings, near starvation and snitching on others to survive. Born into one of the worst of North Korea's system of prison camps, Shin was doomed to a life of hard labor and an early death. Notions of love and family were meaningless: He saw his mother as a competitor for food.
These days, the parents of Treyvon Martin are in the news every day. In the months since their son was shot to death in Sanford, Florida, they've spoken at press conferences and rallies, addressed newspaper editorial boards and even Congress.
Treyvon's father, Tracy Martin, came here to NPR this week. On the program TELL ME MORE, he spoke about the process of dealing with his son's death, saying, it will be a long time before the healing even starts.
What happens to the provisions of the federal health care law if the Supreme Court throws it out entirely? Melissa Block discusses that with NPR health policy correspondent Julie Rovner.
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
We begin this hour by exploring two questions that arise from the killing of Trayvon Martin. He's the 17-year-old shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer last month in Sanford, Florida. In a few minutes, we'll hear from two parents whose children were killed, and how they coped with the sudden media spotlight.
