Stories by Daniel Hautzinger

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn for thirteen years, gathering data about the planet, its many unique moons, and its mysterious rings. Now it is poised to make a final dive into the planet's atmosphere. What have scientists learned from this extraordinary mission?

In 2015, Abacus Federal Savings Bank was the 2,651st largest bank in the United States. It's also the only U.S. bank prosecuted for the 2008 financial crisis. Steve James, director of Hoop Dreams, discusses his Frontline documentary Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.

A cold case is re-opened when a millennia-old body is discovered near a rural village. The juxtaposition of a controversial nuclear power plant and country people who still hold pagan beliefs provides a confusing backdrop for Morse and Thursday as they investigate. 

Even though they're the ones who create what you see and love in Disney films, animators, designers, and art directors aren't household names. Discover the people responsible for Fantasia, Jafar, the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, and more, and learn about their adventurous lives.

Phil Seymour promised a young Vietnamese boy a watch while he was serving as a Marine near the boy's village. He regretted his failure to follow through for forty years, until he reunited with Cam, forming a bond with him and his family, especially his daughter.

In 1980, Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel looked back on the films that tackled the Vietnam War, reviewing Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Hair, and, the one pro-war film, John Wayne's The Green Berets, among others. Hear their takes on Hollywood's contributions.

The Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong, responsible for the artistic look of Bambi and subject of a new American Masters documentary, lived to be 106 years old. What famous artists born more than a century ago are still living – some even working – today?  

Both Superintendent Bright and an important informant are in the hospital, but there are rumors that their ward is cursed. Seemingly healthy patients keep dying in the same bed. Morse must navigate the complicated relationships between nurses and doctors in the ward to solve the mystery.

You might have Richard Linklater pegged as a philosophizing director fixated on subdued, musing moments, but he's made a wide range of films. From School of Rock to Fast Food Nation to Bernie to Boyhood, explore some of his films, including two upcoming ones.

The free Chicago Jazz Festival, which runs from Thursday to Sunday, celebrates the centennials of Dizzy, Ella, and Monk this year – but it also features creative new projects. Dee Alexander, a performer in the Fest, and Neil Tesser, an organizer, discuss the programming with us.

As Ken Burns's The Vietnam War approaches, watch excerpts from two 1976 WTTW interviews with General William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968. The war "came about as the result of a series of very serious political blunders," he says.

Moral crusader Joy Pettybon and psychedelic band The Wildwood come to heads in Oxford, and Morse is caught in the middle. Assigned to protect Pettybon from a death threat, he soon finds himself drawn into a world of sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll – and murder.

The Democratic National Convention of August, 1968, held in Chicago, was a defining moment of the Vietnam era and a watershed in American politics. What actually happened during that devastating event that pitted police against protesters and ripped apart the Democratic Party?

August 24 is National Peach Pie Day, one of a whopping five national pie days in August. If there's that many, you have to celebrate at least one. Try a recipe for fried peach hand pies from our friends at Cook's Country.

With less computing power than a smartphone, the Voyager spacecraft have traveled more than twenty-two billion miles between them, carrying a Golden Record documenting earth. Launched forty years ago, the Voyager mission is the first human-made object to reach interstellar space.