Features

As part of Tell Me More's series for National Poetry Month, host Michel Martin shares a poetic tweet from Philadelphia poet and English professor, Kelly McQuain. Listeners are invited to tweet original poems of 140 characters or less to #TMMPoetry.

Mexican officials are probing allegations that Wal-Mart paid $24 million in bribes to speed construction of new stores there. Wal-Mart has also been accused of lobbying to amend U.S. anti-bribery laws. Host Michel Martin talks with reporter Ana Maria Salazar, who says even big companies have to grease the wheels in Mexico.

Transcript

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Right now some of the hottest artists in Latin music are in Miami for the annual Billboard Latin Music Conference and Awards. Those awards celebrate the most popular musicians in business innovators in Latin music.

Now if you are not an expert on Latin music, do not worry. We have you covered. Here to guide us, Jasmine Garsd and Felix Contreras. They are co-hosts of the NPR Podcast Alt.Latino. They've been with us this week to tell us which artists to keep an eye on.

Welcome back. Thanks for joining us again.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano pledged on Wednesday the investigation into Secret Service agents who allegedly hired prostitutes this month in Cartagena, Colombia, "will be complete and thorough and we will leave no stone unturned."

The term "string band" tends to conjure up images of rustic simplicity, but Punch Brothers' music is anything but simple. Challenging to play, it offers many subtle pleasures, from strange musical structures to opaque lyrics. (I wouldn't have known that "Movement and Location," from the band's new album Who's Feeling Young Now?, had anything to do with baseball if Chris Thile hadn't explained it to me himself.)

A bill passed by the Senate yesterday would help U.S. Postal Service keep post offices around the country open, NPR reports.

The Postal Service is not pleased.

The key issue: The Postal Service, which loses $25 million every single day, wants to save money by closing hundreds or thousands of post offices and shifting services to places like grocery stores.

More than 90 years ago, on April 29, 1922, Jean-Baptiste "Toots" Thielemans was born in Brussels. An organization formed to celebrate his landmark birthday, TOOTS90 is presenting a series of eight concerts, featuring Thielemans' quartet and special guests Kenny Werner on piano and Oscar Castro-Neves and Philip Catherine on guitar. All take place in Belgium, tracing a route from Antwerp to Gent, Brussels, Hasselt, Brugge, Liège and Dinant.