Senate Republicans released their plan to roll back the Affordable Care Act this week. The measure was drafted in secret and comes after the U.S. House of Representatives passed its own version of a health bill last month. The bill is expected to come to the Senate floor next week.

In 1981, Margaret Maron published a mystery novel about NYPD homicide detective Sigrid Harald and her investigation of a poisoning. More than 35 years and 31 titles later, Maron felt she had one more story to tell before retiring from novel writing.

Kym Register and Will Hackney are Loamlands, a folk-rock band whose often dark lyrics focus on local stories like urban development in Durham and overlooked queer history. The title track off their newest album, “Sweet High Rise,” is a direct reflection on watching the One City Center on Main Street in Durham climbs upward, forever changing the city skyline. Register’s thoughtful lyrics are supported and sometimes played off against contrasting layers of Hackney’s arrangements.

This week on the WUNCPolitics Podcast, a conversation about the state budget, journalism and accusations of being a jihadist. Following spending proposals from the Governor, House, and Senate over the past few months, lawmakers passed a budget compromise this week. The $23 billion fiscal blueprint includes a $530 million tax cut, an average 3.3-percent raise for teachers, and a 1-percent pension bump for state retirees. Naturally Republicans are hailing the plan, while most Democrats contend the budget document doesn’t do enough for middle-class families and education.

We often think of the battlefield as a place of chaos, where the explosive sounds of gunfire ring out over commands. But the technology of warfare is changing and so is the sound.

When it comes to bohemian art scenes and creative subcultures, the South has often been overshadowed – or sometimes even dismissed – in favor of metropolitan areas like New York or San Francisco. But a new book seeks to highlight the creative thinkers and diverse art scenes that influenced culture in the South, as well as those that permeated into the art, literary, and food scenes in northern states.

There are some changes coming to the North Carolina Public Radio - WUNC Saturday program lineup in July. NPR is ending its production of The Best of Car Talk; now it's time to say goodbye to the edited reruns of Click and Clack.

The last broadcast of The Best of Car Talk on WUNC will be June 24. The following Saturday, July 1, On The Media, hosted by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, will join the WUNC Saturday line up. 

Over the years, country music has seen iconic women like Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn become legends in the Country Music Hall of Fame. Nevertheless, country music remains a boy’s club for many artists. In her new novel “The Whole Way Home” (William Morrow/2017), writer Sarah Creech tells the story of one woman’s road to country music stardom.

Superheroes have captured the American imagination since the 1930s. Characters including Superman, Batman and Spiderman represented men of strength and moral fiber who inspired as they fought the forces of evil. It was an easy jump to the silver screen, where today, multiple superhero films are released every year, blowing up box office records as often as they do the bad guys.