NPR News

This interview was originally broadcast on April 23, 2012. Jack Black's Bernie is now out on DVD.

Power-pop icon Matthew Sweet returns to Mountain Stage, recorded live in Charleston, W.V. To music fans who spent time watching MTV or listening to FM radio in the fall of 1991, Sweet needs no introduction: His song "Girlfriend," along with its innovative video, was inescapable — and, most importantly, sounded like nothing else on the airwaves at the time.

When you can't beat the slowness of late summer as an entertainment season, you can at least embrace it, and that's what we did this week. Dog days of summer winding down, you say? We say it's time to talk about pop culture dogs. Not dogs in the "lousy product" sense, but dogs in the sense of literal, actual dogs. Faithful, friendly, silly, whether the size of an ottoman or the size of a wallet.

Among the little treasures, Stephen is fond of this slightly obscure dog — at least these eight minutes of him.

As the AP reads it, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke stopped just short of "committing the Fed to any specific move, such as another round of bond purchases to lower long-term interest rates."

Bernanke gave a speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wy. today. As with all his speeches, it was being closely watched for signs on what the Federal Reserve would do next.

Just hours after accepting the presidential nomination of the Republican party, Mitt Romney is headed to Louisiana for a more sober occasion: He will tour the damage left by Hurricane Isaac.

Update at 11:42 a.m. ET. President Obama also announced that he would visit the affected areas on Monday.

NPR's Ari Shapiro reports Romney hopes to console the victims of the floods. Ari filed this report for our Newscast unit:

"This New Orleans trip was a last-minute addition to the schedule.

Ivan Doig's The Bartender's Tale, about a single father facing his past, debuts at No. 13.