Airs Friday, June 21 at 9 p.m. This week on the Caravan we'll hear new music from Ben Folds Five, The Pastels, Terra Naomi, and Cloud Control plus tunes from Allison Crowe, John Melloncamp, Nick Brumley and Buddy Flett. For our second hour we'll sit down with Alexandra McCullough and talk about her upcoming debut CD and she'll share a few tunes with us. We'll also hear First Aid Kit live in a Tiny Desk Concert from NPR ... and on our final hour we'll walk about in Shoes by Dr. Zeuss.

Airs Thursday, June 20 at 6 p.m.  Tune in and call in with your questions about our friends of flight when Ornithologist Cliff Shackelford from the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife takes your call on "Bird Calls" from Red River Radio. He'll answer your questions about our avian world at 800-552-8502. 

Airs Tuesday, June 18 at 9 p.m. Here's a pairing that raises the question: "Why hasn't this happened before?" The Bad Plus have been a revisionist cover band and today mostly make original piano trio music. Bill Frisell is the quintessential jazz collaborator. The guitarist, making the second of three appearances at this year's Newport Jazz Festival, is down for anything involving good musicians, and can be counted on to execute it well. Together, they paid tribute to one of their mutual heroes, the late drummer Paul Motian, in a set comprised mostly of his haunting compositions. The band features Ethan Iverson on piano, Reid Anderson on bass, Dave King on drums and Bill Frisell on guitar.

Airs Thursday, June 20 at 8 p.m. Philadelphia has been the birthplace of many great jazz musicians, including many masters of jazz. By the late 1920s, players such as Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti had put Phillip on the jazz map, followed later by Stan Getz and a jazz scene in the 1950s that would include the Heath Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, Benny Golson and Philly Joe Jones, just to name a few. One local kid who fell in love with jazz while still in high school and gradually made a name for himself is none other than pianist Kenny Barron, who at age 68, is playing his finest music ever. Tune in to hear a 2012 solo recital given by Mr. Barron at the Savannah Music Festival. 

You have to wonder if President Obama ever thought, when he first ran for the White House, that he would need to defend himself from accusations his presidency would be a mere extension of his Republican predecessor.

But there he was with journalist Charlie Rose having to explain why his approach to national security wasn't really like that of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Women in America's armed services will have new options for what units they can join in coming years, the Pentagon says. The military said in January that it will end its combat exclusion that set a minimum size for units in which women could be deployed; the limit kept many women away from front-line combat units. The shift means women could join elite forces such as the Army Rangers and Navy SEALs.

On Monday we told you about allegations that America's potato growers had banded together in a price-fixing Potato Cartel.

In the past decade, Mexico's tech industry has flourished, growing three times faster than the global average. Most of that growth has been fueled by demand from the United States. But as Mexico's startups strive to make it in foreign markets, they say they need more engineers and ways to finance their growth.

Federal regulators are dropping plans to tightly control a procedure that is becoming increasingly popular for treating people stricken by life-threatening infections of the digestive system.

The Food and Drug Administration says the agency will exercise enforcement discretion and no longer require doctors to get the agency's approval before using "fecal microbiota for transplantation."

British Prime Minister David Cameron is sometimes picked on for his privileged background, and at the Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland, he sought to go casual.

Not only did he ditch the tie, as did other leaders, Cameron also shed his jacket and even rolled up his sleeves.

Not everyone was won over.