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The Smithsonian American Art Museum reopens Saturday after a 6-year renovation. One new feature is an conservation lab with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. Conservators accustomed to careful, detailed and solitary work on fragile art will now have an audience.

Trains with steam engines have vanished in most parts of the country, replaced by diesel. But in parts of West Virginia, sounds of steam locomotive whistles can still be heard. In this edition of Lost and Found Sound, NPR’s Noah Adams said those sounds echo across the landscape like the sound of a century passing.

At his death in 1829, English scientist James Smithson left half a million dollars for the establishment of an institution in Washington, D.C. He'd never set foot in the city -- or in the United States. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Nina Burleigh, author of The Stranger and the Statesman, a new book about the mysterious benefactor of the Smithsonian Institution.

Six years ago, the meeting of The International Monetary Fund and World Bank was targeted by protesters in Washington, D.C. This weekend, the streets of the capitol are quiet. What has changed?

Last week, high school freshman Jackie Kantor and her younger sister Melissa had an idea: they wanted to give displaced children new backpacks. More than 2,000 backpacks have been collected for kids who lost all their other possessions in Hurricane Katrina.

Host Liane Hansen speaks with Martin Cruz Smith. The author of Havana Bay and Gorky Park now has a new novel of international intrigue, called December 6 (Simon & Shuster, ISBN 0-684-87253-6), set on the brink of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) continue their analysis of Wednesday's hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Wednesday evening, many PBS stations across the country will broadcast the first part of a new documentary that explores the impact of childhood cancer on five Ohio families. A Lion in the House takes an unflinching look at a subject that many viewers may find uncomfortable.

Each Tuesday in August, Katie Davis takes All Things Considered to the Walter Pierce Community Park in Washington, D.C. Davis lives near the park and knows it very well. In the last segment in her series on park life, Davis offers a poetic introduction to Leah, one of the many personalities that make the park unique.

Richard McCann's autobiographical novel Mother of Sorrows took 20 years to complete. The author tells Jacki Lyden how the book came to be.