"Here Comes A Regular" - The Replacements

    When Hitler’s armies occupied Italy in 1943, they also seized control of mankind’s greatest cultural treasures. As they had done throughout Europe, the Nazis could now plunder the masterpieces of the Renaissance, the treasures of the Vatican, and the antiquities of the Roman Empire. 

Robert Edsel joins us to talk about the efforts to save Italy’s great artistic treasures from the Nazis. 

His book is Saving Italy: The Race to Rescue a Nation's Treasures from the Nazis.

  The sequester has been the law of the land since March.

In today’s Congressional Corner, New York Representative Chris Gibson — a Republican from the 19th district — tells WAMC’s Alan Chartock that the budget cuts are not to his liking.

  We are very happy to continue our new regular feature on The Roundtable, entitled – Ideas Matter: Checking in with the Public Humanities.

It is our chance to check in with the Humanities Councils throughout our 7-State area to discuss important ideas and why they do indeed matter.

This morning we spotlight New York State’s Summer Reading kick-off. Erika Halstead is program officer for the NY Council for the Humanities and she joins us to tell us more.

The officer who handled sexual assault claims for a New York Air National Guard airlift wing says the unit has promoted abusers instead of punishing them.

Retired Lt. Col. Sharon Dwyer Stepp's claims are made in a letter she sent to Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. Stepp was the Scotia-based unit's sexual assault prevention and response coordinator from 2006 to 2010. She told The Associated Press she acted because she's "fed up" by the spate of sex scandals roiling the U.S. military.

  In the seven years since her last album, Audra McDonald has kept busy…including singing the hook for Neil Patrick Harris' rap at the conclusion of Sunday’s Tony Awards. She spent several years in Hollywood, filming the television series Private Practice. She's gotten divorced and remarried, absorbed the shock of losing her father in a plane crash and watched her daughter, grow up from a kindergartener to a middle-schooler.

Last year, McDonald returned to New York, starred in The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess and won a fifth Tony Award. All the ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies are reflected on her new album, Go Back Home. She will be performing at The Colonial in Pittsfield, MA tomorrow night at 8pm.

  Today's panelists are WAMC's Ray Graf and Times Union Associate Editor, Mike Spain. Joe Donahue moderates.

Topics include:
Syria
RPI
Local parks and playgrounds
Superman

WARWICK – A Warwick native, who was killed in Afghanistan last weekend, will be laid to rest at the West Point Cemetery.

LTC Jaimie Leonard was 39 when she was shot and killed by enemy fire while serving in the US Army. A 1997 graduate of the USMA, she was based at Fort Drum.

She was in her third deployment to the region – once in Iraq and twice in Afghanistan, and was the recipient of numerous awards and medals including three Bronze Stars.

Leonard will be interred with full military honors on next Thursday, June 20.

Six months after the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, the tragedy will be marked with a moment of silence, the reading of thousands of names of gun violence victims and calls around the country to pass legislation expanding background checks for gun purchases.

Family members, elected officials and other leaders will gather in Newtown today for a day of remembrance and a call to action. Mayors Against Illegal Guns will launch a bus tour to 25 states to build support for background checks.

New York State and Seneca Indian Nation leaders have announced a deal to resolve a long-running dispute over western New York gambling rights and revenue.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Seneca President Barry Snyder said Thursday that $630 million in payments withheld by the tribe after it said the state broke an agreement granting it exclusive gambling rights will be divided up between three cities with Seneca casinos, the state and the tribe.