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The king of ragtime published his hit tune 120 years ago. Pianist Lara Downes believes the piece helped shape the future of American music.

Olympic figure skating is often seems to take athletes to the very edge of perfection, but even the greatest stumble and fall. How do they pull themselves together again on the biggest world stage? Toughness, poise and practice.

Fast skiers require fast skis. They rely on a team of technicians to wax and prep them for each day's conditions. The U.S. cross-country team has a mobile ski shop that is an unsung hero of their success: Yolanda the wax truck.

Russia's track and field program is banned from international competition because of a doping scandal. Mary Louise Kelly talks to Gene Grabowski, a former partner with Burson-Marsteller.

In Rebecca Miller's comedy, an affair leads to divorce and remarriage — until the new wife decides she wants out. Critic David Edelstein says that Maggie's Plan doesn't quite come together.

NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with This American Life contributor and founder of Found Magazine Davy Rothbart, who went inside the company "Crowds on Demand," a company you call when you need a crowd of people for any reason. This company sends fake paparazzi, pretend campaign protestors and pretend news crews to stoke more protest.

Writer-director Garry Marshall, who had a string of TV hits that included Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley and the box-office smashes Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride, has died. He was 81.

With rising awareness of opioid abuse, some pain patients say doctors are less likely to prescribe them. One Montana sufferer goes to great lengths to get his prescription — he flies to California.

Advocates of police reform say there's been real progress since the Ferguson, Mo., protests, but both sides worry about how to keep that process going after recent, deadly attacks targeting police.

They are a concise lesson in world history, reflecting wars won and lost, economic growth and decline and a country's overall standing in the world.