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PART 1 -- Independent producers The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva) continue our year-long series (which airs every Friday in 1999 on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED) with part one of a profile of the work of Thomas Alva Edison in the realm of recorded sound. We learn that the inventor of the phonograph intended his instrument to be used to capture speeches and office dictation. Only later did he record music for the public. Skeptics were in disbelief of the phonograph when it first appeared, that they suspected Edison of hiring ventriloquists to copy voices. Edison, the "Wizard of Menlo Park" (named after the site of his first New Jersey laboratory), was a huge public figure of his day. He held over a thousand patents, but considered the phonograph his most important invention. Part Two, next Friday, continues the story with how Edison faced competition in the record industry.

Yadhira Lozano is named new Executive Director of Contemporary Arts Festival Luminaria

Poet Tess Taylor says a good poem can "reroute your day" in under five minutes. She offers suggestions for poetry that "takes you to a different place, and then allows you to return a little altered."

Books make great last minute gift ideas. Here are a few tips for book shoppers with voids still to fill, helped by NPR's Book Concierge.

Top House Democrats want to revive the spending practice that allows members to request money for specific projects. It has been effectively banned since 2011.

The R&B star's new song, written for Morning Edition's Song Project, is about working — alongside the whole world — to get through a year of challenges and loss.

Going to a club during the coronavirus pandemic is a terrible idea. A Swiss nightclub that closed due to COVID-19 restrictions is now a blood donation center — complete with music and lights.

Winds brought so many tumbleweeds to a Melbourne suburb that people reported being trapped in their homes. The influx of tumbleweeds, known as a hairy panic in Australia, were 14 feet high in spots.

Hospitals are overwhelmed in several Sunbelt states, with New Mexico's governor threatening to move to "crisis standards." Care has stabilized in the Midwest which saw an earlier surge.

NPR's Noel King speaks with Dr. Jason Mitchell, chief medical and clinical transformation officer for Presbyterian Healthcare Service in New Mexico, about hospitals running out of ICU beds.