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The New York Philharmonic's "Bach Variations" festival continues at 7 PM Thursday with the Mass in B Minor - Bach's "most spectacular choral work," as the scholar and conductor John Butt calls it.

U.S. senators of both parties are directing outrage at top IRS officials over not being informed earlier about the tax agency’s work to target conservatives, and they’re demanding answers. Today on River to River, it’s politics day. Host Ben Kieffer sits down with our analysts, Tim Hagle, of the University of Iowa, and Chris Larimer, of the University of Northern Iowa, to find out what questions are being asked, why it matters, and how much of what we’re seeing is simply political grandstanding.

Today is the 200th birthday of Richard Wagner. Performance Today at 5 will be almost all Wagner; Barney Sherman from 1-5 will play just a little of his music, but will also feature music by composers who respond, in some way, to or against Wagner: Debussy (a recording of him playing his own "Children's Corner"), Faure, John Adams, Leonard Bernstein, and a movement by Bruckner. We'll also sample a new recording of one of the works that most influenced Wagner, Beethoven's 9th. (And for more, Bill McGlaughlin continues his week-long series on Wagner at 9 PM.)

The search for 15-year-old Kathlynn Shepard continues in the north-central Iowa town of Dayton. Investigators say a man abducted Shepard as she walked home from the bus stop yesterday. He was later found dead in a suspected suicide.

More than 200 volunteers continued to search for Shepard on Tuesday, and investigators say they are ‘optimistic’ she will be found alive. A 12-year-old girl also was abducted, but escaped soon after and alerted police.

Dayton is a town with a population of less than 1,000. 

Legend has it that in 1903, for several nights in a row the small town of Van Meter was terrorized by a giant bat-like creature. One-hundred ten years later, Talk of Iowa tries to uncover the truth with author Chad Lewis, a paranormal investigator and co-author of the new book "The Van Meter Visitor: A True and Mysterious Encounter with the Unknown."

Though stalking became a crime in the state of Iowa in 1994, it’s a difficult charge since in many ways stalking is an “invisible" crime.  Upon examining this crime River to River asks, "What should a person do if they're being stalked?" And also, "What drivers stalkers to obsessively harass their victims?"

Facial recognition technology is increasing becoming a part of life, but how is this technology being used and how much is too much?  Brian Mennecke will explain the ways digital advertisements can "read" your face and discuss other commercial uses for facial recognition technology.  Later Gary Wells joins the program to discuss his recently developed proc

  This Saturday at 2 PM, IPR Studio One's Ben Kieffer will host a special hour of "Java Blend" with Korby Lenker.

  This Saturday at 2 PM, IPR Studio One's Ben Kieffer will host a special hour of "Java Blend" with Korby Lenker.

What do we make of the complex legacy of Richard Wagner on the 200th anniversary of his birth, Wednesday? Both Performance Today with Fred Child (5-7 PM) and Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin (9-10 PM) are exploring the question this week with fascinating results. Tune in tonight to PT, for example, to hear Gabriel Faure's "Souvenirs of Bayreuth" - a cheeky quadrille on themes from the Ring Cycle - as well as Wagner in concert by leading performers (among those on PT this week are Bryn Terfel, Deborah Voigt, Sir Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen).

Orchestra Iowa Chamber: Concert 4

Iowa lawmakers are returning to Des Moines for a third week of overtime. The session was scheduled to wrap up May 3, but legislators continue to negotiate education reform, property taxes, Medicaid expansion, and other key issues.

"The Heavens Laugh, the Earth Rejoices"  is the title of a Bach cantata and of the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony's concert of Easter-related Bach, which you can hear on IPR Sunday at noon or Monday at 7 PM. The Brandenburg Concerto no. 1 is preceded by sinfonias from several cantatas (including "The Heavens Laugh, the Earth Rejoices" BWV 31) and the Easter Oratorio, and by the entirety of the beautiful Cantata 104, "Hear, O Shepherd of Israel" (with the University of Northern Iowa Cantorei and soloists Jeffrey Brich and John Hines). Music Director Jason Weinberger conducts.

Mid-American Energy is planning to invest $1.9 billion in Iowa to add up to about one gigawatt of wind generation, which could power 300-thousand homes. That means more than 600 new wind turbines are expected to be built in Iowa by 2016.  Host Ben Kieffer gets details on the project, and he gets a broader look at wind energy in Iowa with both large- and small-scale turbines. We also talk with an ISU professor a grad student working on designing a different wind turbine tower—one made out of concrete.

Thanks to the drought and various blights and diseases, the term evergreen doesn’t seem very appropriate in Iowa right now.  Today on Talk of Iowa, it’s Horticulture Day.  Host Charity Nebbe sits down with forester Mark Vitosh about the state of evergreens in Iowa. Horticulturist Richard Jauron also joins the conversation to answer your questions.

Ever know someone who talks to plants?

Maybe it was your offbeat neighbor cooing at his gardenias; maybe your grandmother analyzed baseball with her cucumbers. It seems a bit silly, but researchers say farmers should maybe take notice.

In 1982, when Bruce Holbert was a young man, he accidentally shot and killed a friend. Today on River to River, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate, Bruce Holbert will recount that accidental shooting and how he coped afterward. Holbert’s new novel Lonesome Animals is a western detective story in the vein of True Grit, and he connects it to America's fascination with the gun myth.

Tune in today at 12 noon for the season's first broadcast from the Lyric Opera of Chicago, featuring Verdi's Simon Boccanegra -  "essentially a heartwarming story about a compassionate political leader... who is reunited with his lost daughter...and makes peace with two political enemies" (as the New York Times summarizes the plot). The renowned American baritone Thomas Hampson heads the stellar cast.

How does a new craft brewer stand apart from the pack? A few have hitched their brewery onto the local food bandwagon, sourcing the ingredients that form beer’s DNA straight from the fields around them.

Last year, more than 400 breweries opened nationwide. It shouldn’t surprise that the craft beer industry is growing at a tremendous rate. In some states, like Colorado, there are so many craft breweries they’re starting to blend together.

FABulous songs that I haven't played recently on The Medley

It's the annual recap of the Blues Music Awards given out by The Blues Foundation in Memphis on May 9. We will hear music from the winners in 20 BMA categories including Song of the Year, Band of the Year, and BB King Entertainer of the Year.

Long promised, finally delivered! NO WORDS ALOUD! It's an all instrumental show from the twangy guitar of Duane Eddy, to 60s soul grooves, the Hippie jams and early electronica. Great music, NO words!

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire for a wide-ranging subpoena of phone records at the Associated Press, as part of investigating a national security leak. That, along with continuing investigations of the IRS and the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, has sucked all the air out of Washington for several days. Host Ben Kieffer talks with political analysts Wayne Moyer from Grinnell College and Donna Hoffman from University of Northern Iowa about the scandals and how they're impacting President Obama's second-term agenda.

In the summer of 2000, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright attended a summit with Bill Clinton and Russian president Vladmir Putin. At the time, Russia had invaded Chechnya, amid reports of human rights abuses and violations of international law.

Albright, who had become known for her decorative pins that carried symbolic messages in diplomatic meetings, wore a pin of three monkeys representing the proverb, “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.”

She says President Clinton was skeptical.