This week's Number of the Week from Mona Chalabi of FiveThirtyEight.com is... 1,274. That's the number of racist incidents in France in 2013, according to the government. But it's not clear who was affected and how.

Number of the Week, Jan 18, 2015: Racist Incidents Fall Through France's Information Gap

This week's Number of the Week from Mona Chalabi of FiveThirtyEight.com is... 38. 38% of American wives earn more than their husbands. 

Number of the Week, Feb. 8, 2015: Women Out-Earning Men

Howard University senior Taylor Davis told NPR she expects to have to work harder than her future coworkers to prove she belongs.

The Howard Project: Imagining The Future

Comedian Ahmed Ahmed says almost everything is fair game for his comedy, including the self-proclaimed Islamic State.

For The Record: Islam And Comedy

The number of dollars of unpaid child support each year in the U.S. is well into the billions. NPR's Rachel Martin speaks with data expert Mona Chalabi of FiveThirtyEight.com about the numbers.

Number of the Week, Mar. 1, 2015: Child Support

The 6 million domestic flights taken last year generated 115 million minutes of delays. NPR's Rachel Martin asks data expert Mona Chalabi of FiveThirtyEight.com what's behind all those delays.

Number of the Week, Mar. 15, 2015: Flight Delays

Number of the Week, April 26, 2015: Migrants

NPR's Rachel Martin spoke with Seal, who is starring in "The Passion" on Palm Sunday. He'll perform "Mad World" by Tears for Fears live, and gave us a preview.

Seal Singing Tears For Fears' "Mad World"

June 9, 2001

"Merle Haggard is his own legend, the bearded outcome of a hard-scrabble life spent in the kind of country his music's named for. He is an artist and an ex-con, a writer and a family man. 
To his fans, he is an omnipotent creator. Few musicians are as productive (and successful) as Merle. He has cut over 100 albums, had 39 #1 country hits, received Grammy and Country Music Awards, and is the only California-born singer in the Country Hall of Fame. 

Merle was born to migrants from Oklahoma, in a converted boxcar in Oildale, California (a small suburb of Bakersfield). As a child he became involved in petty crime that grew increasingly less petty, culminating in a solitary confinement stint at the California state prison, San Quentin. 

It was not until his release in 1962 that he began to emerge as the musician, known affectionately as the "Hag." Close to forty years later, he's still a heavy weight on the country music scene, established as a very 'non-Hollywood-ized, non-Nashville-ized' country music star. Merle does not wear satin suits, white cowboy boots, or faux-diamond studded belts. Merle, not unlike Buck Owens and Lefty Frizzell (well-loved country music greats from his homeland), is Bakersfield. 

In a town as hard and dry as the inimitable central valley flats that surround it, Merle is a voice one can recognize, raw, sometimes problematic, consistently beautiful. 

His music speaks to young and old, those who cut their teeth on rebellion and drifter-ism. He is a quirky and original song-writer, drawing inspiration from Hank Williams, Jimmy Rogers, Lefty Frizzell, Buck Owens, and countless jazz, swing, and blues riffs. 

His latest album, If I Could Only Fly is, perhaps, a tribute to the older Merle. He is growing reflective in his later years and it's harder to picture the hard-time-doin', roughhousing songster of his youth. His music is no less for it. The songs on this CD do not ooze a goopy sentimentalism. Instead, they provide lyrical apologies, love songs any central valley honey would pine for, and a truckload of the rich harmonies and well-wrought turns of song we've come to expect. 

Listen to Scott Simon talk to Merle Haggard about life after 60 and his new CD."

http://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/features/2001/010609.mhaggard.html

Photo by whittlz at http://www.flickr.com/photos/whittlz/

On the Tour Bus with Merle Haggard (from June 9, 2001)

How should you pronounce Rio Grande? There's really no one right answer.

How do you say Rio Grande?

NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon and Rachel Martin.

Tracks by NPR Weekend Edition