Search results for

When politicians say that small businesses are key to job growth, what most people imagine are mom-and-pop shops — the dry cleaner or coffee place. It may make a good sound bite, but research shows that most small businesses stay small. Only a fraction of these do grow into something big.

The first-ever study of more than 1,100 schools of education released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality shows that teacher preparation is in disarray. The study warns that 163 programs provide only "minimal, substandard training."

The veteran actor recently made his directorial debut with a film about four aging opera singers who stage a concert at their retirement home. Starring Maggie Smith and Tom Courtenay, the film explores friendship, memory and the time that remains.

Wal-Mart says it will not build three of the six stores planned for Washington, D.C., after the city council passed a bill that would require the retailer to pay a wage nearly 50 percent higher than the city's minimum wage. Those three stores would be located in mostly low-income areas, with high unemployment and few places to shop. A similar situation once played out in Chicago.

For years, there were rumors that filmmaker Henry Jaglom had taped hours of his conversations with Orson Welles but that the tapes had been lost. They weren't. Now the transcripts have been released in a new book, edited and introduced by Peter Biskind.

President Obama joined thousands at the Lincoln Memorial to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Seamus Heaney was possibly the most-read living poet. He was admired by peers and critics and loved by the general public, which bought his books by the thousands. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. Heaney died Friday in Dublin after what his family described in a statement as a 'brief illness." He was 74 years old.

A march and rally kicks off at the Lincoln Memorial this morning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Organizers say the event is also meant to continue their fight for economic parity, voting rights and equality.

California's small producers of tomatoes, grapes and other crops are increasingly taking up dry farming, which involves growing crops without watering them for months. The technique, which obviously saves water, can produce more flavorful crops.

Recently, Fresh Air contributor Maureen Corrigan found a letter from then-Secretary of War James Forrestal that had been sent to her father after he had been honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1945. In that letter, she found an expression of gratitude that could serve us well today.