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Author J.K. Rowling, Of Harry Potter fame, has launched a new website. There's not much there except illustrations of two owls and a link to a clock — counting down to six days from now, when the author plans to announce her mysterious new project. Rowling's publicists are only saying it is not a new book.

The singer's 1968 hit "Different Strokes" became a popular hip-hop sample used by artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Public Enemy and Kanye West.

The number of disorderly passengers on airplanes has spiked during the pandemic. Now, one airline CEO is renewing his call for a national no-fly list — and asking the U.S. government for backup.

Fresh Air's film critic says Adam Shankman's candy-colored teeny-bopper parable feels fatuously energized, with the songs all blaring at one manic pitch and a heroine whose delusional optimism has peaked by the end of the opening number.

Artist Edward Hopper is best known for provocative, shadowy oil paintings of people in urban settings — diners, offices and bedrooms. But the work that put Hopper on the map is a watercolor of an elegant, light-drenched house in Gloucester, Mass.

Actor and writer Ricky Gervais is best known as creator and star of the British TV comedy The Office, which was adapted into a U.S. hit starring Steve Carrell. Gervais also stars in Extras, which airs in the U.S. on HBO, and writes the Flanimals children's books.

Children are going to have to read fast to avoid finding out from others what happens in the long-awaited final book of the Harry Potter series. Young readers discuss strategies for keeping the ending secret.

An American Idol-style contest to choose the stars of Broadway's latest Grease revival wasn't exactly a ratings smash. But hefty advance ticket sales means that the NBC series may have been a success in a different way: as a marketing gimmick.

Fresh Air's critic-at-large reviews a new DVD set featuring two masterpieces by French filmmaker Chris Marker: 1962's La Jetee and 1984's Sans Soleil. The first is a science-fiction story set in a post-apocalyptic Paris; the narrator of the brilliantly perceptive Sans Soleiltells viewers about the letters she's received from a globe-trotting friend; her monologue is accompanied by footage from around the world.

Natasha Trethewey was recently awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection Native Guard. Trethewey grew up bi-racial in Mississippi, and her mother was murdered by her stepfather; these, along with the South, are recurring themes in her poetry.