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The West Nile virus was identified for the first time in Uganda in the 1930s. It was infecting people in the West Nile region of Africa. The virus spreads when mosquitoes bite infected animals, and then bite humans. It showed up for the first time in the United States two summers ago. In 1999, thousands of crows around New York City, infected with the virus, began dropping dead out of the sky and dozens of people ended up in hospitals. Now a federal study, which has not been published, suggests that since it arrived in the U.S., the West Nile virus has made roughly 1,400 people sick. It has spread from New York and now is known to infect animals along the East Coast, up to the Canadian border and down to North Carolina. It is expected to eventually spread across the entire United States. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling reports the case of West Nile symbolizes a dilemma: as the global economy knits countries closer together, it's also making the United States more vulnerable to exotic diseases. The story of West Nile is a production of NPR and American Radio Works. It was produced by Marisa Penaloza.

The prolific author tackled difficult issues of race in novels and poetry. He used his writing to challenge assumptions about African-Americans, including civil rights hero Martin Luther King Jr.

While her mother worked long hours, musicals on VHS would entertain the singer when she was young.

Eight out of 10 Americans believe the U.S. faces a threat to democracy but disagree on what is causing it. The final NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist poll of 2022 reveals insights into public opinion.

"It's not a hoax, it's a strategy and marketing 101!" wrote the singer of "Bawitdaba" on his personal website.

The Tehran-born singer, who has a huge fan base among Persian and Armenian Americans, is the first Iranian to be enshrined on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Critic Bob Mondello sings the praises of Woody Allen's first musical "Everyone Says I Love You." It's a throwback to musicals of the 1930's.

Facing a fatal diagnosis, Wilko Johnson made what was to be his final album with singer Roger Daltrey of The Who. Then doctors intervened. "Maybe," Daltrey says, "there's a Part 2 to this record."

It's the entrepreneurs' dream: tapping into China's market of 1.3 billion people. That dream fueled the efforts of two Chinese-American MBAs to take the soft-pretzel franchise — a staple of U.S. shopping malls — to China. Cultural and financial barriers, however, led to a far more challenging reality.