A lot of things about grilling can ignite a fight, including the meaning of "barbecue." And with the proliferation of fancy equipment — from gas grills to pellet smokers to ceramic charcoal cookers — amateur cooks are growing more knowledgeable, and opinionated, about how to best cook food outdoors.

The L.A. band Fitz & The Tantrums broke through in 2011 with its debut album, Picking Up the Pieces. Undeniable songs and exciting concerts led the group to festival dates and other high-profile live appearances around the world.

 Kevin Milner, Daniel Dye, and Tim Pritchard stopped by the WYSO studios today to share a couple big laughs and great songs. Niki Dakota hosted as they all told stories and played from the heart.

These three musicians, along with six other of Dayton's best singer/songwriters, will be performing at Canal Street Tavern on Sunday night at 8pm  for the Singer/Songwriter Celebration. 

Media empire News Corp., parent of Fox and The Wall Street Journal, will be cleaved into two businesses starting June 28: a publishing arm and one for entertainment.

The plan was first announced a year ago. As we reported at the time:

On Sunday, The Dayton International Peace Museum presents “Iran: Yesterday and Today.” which includes a Rick Steves Public TV video and a local expert.  This is Sunday at 2:00pm

Lately I've been re-watching vintage Truffaut movies, and I've been struck by the resurgent influence on American independent films of the French New Wave of the late '50s and '60s.

The Truffaut borrowings are fairly explicit in Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha, while Richard Linklater's Before Midnight takes its cues from Eric Rohmer's gentle but expansive talkfests. That's not a criticism: With mainstream movies seeming ever more machine-tooled nowadays, the impulse to reach back to an age of free-form filmmaking feels especially liberating.

Populations of frogs, salamanders and other amphibians are declining at an average rate of 3.7 percent each year, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study released this week. Researchers say the study is the first to calculate how quickly amphibians are disappearing in the United States.

"If the rate observed is representative and remains unchanged, these species would disappear from half of the habitats they currently occupy in about 20 years," according to the USGS.

Saying that "those who commit sexual assaults are not only committing a crime, they threaten the trust and discipline that make our military strong," President Obama on Friday urged Naval Academy graduates to help bring an end to a disturbing series of such offenses.

"They've got no place in the greatest military on earth," Obama said during the commencement address he delivered at the academy's Annapolis, Md., campus.

Throughout Kobo Town's new album Jumbie in the Jukebox, frontman Drew Gonsalves declares his love for the past even as his feet are firmly planted in the present. The music of the Toronto band can drift between classic Caribbean pop styles and even verge on hip-hop, but the singer's perspective remains sharply focused, wry and witty. The song "Postcard Poverty," for example, ribs tourists for whom tropical slums become an exotic backdrop to fun-in-the-sun adventures.