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There's more to the story of Bananas Foster than flambeed fruit. While the enticing dessert is a sweet legacy of New Orleans' once-booming banana trade, there's also a less savory one: banana republics.

Today, the banana is America's favorite fruit, but it was once considered exotic. The fruit only became commonplace in the United States starting in the 1870s, thanks to improvements in shipping and botany. By the turn of the century, the banana trade was a million-dollar industry.

Federal investigators say they have recovered one of the "black boxes" from the commuter train that hit Hoboken Terminal in New Jersey on Thursday, as they work to discover why the train struck the terminal at a high speed.

The crash killed a woman and injured more than 100 people. The accident also caused structural damage to the century-old train station.

PATH trains and some New Jersey Transit trains have resumed service, but some rail services are still suspended, NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports.

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump renewed his attacks on a former Miss Universe winner Friday, heedless of the possible fallout with women and Latino voters.

In a series of tweets posted around 5 a.m. ET, Trump criticized Alicia Machado as "my worst Miss U." and described her as "disgusting."

Anti-mafia police in Naples, Italy, have recovered two paintings by Vincent van Gogh that were stolen from a museum in Amsterdam more than a decade ago.

The Van Gogh Museum announced Friday that a curator inspected the two works, at the request of Italian authorities, and "drew a firm conclusion: 'They are the real paintings!' "

Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Anthropocene

About Kenneth Lacovara's TED Talk

Have we entered a new age defined by humans? Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara says there's "no doubt" that humans' impact on Earth will show up in the geological record.

About Kenneth Lacovara

Part 3 of TED Radio Hour episode Anthropocene

About Peter Ward's TED Talk

At various times, life on earth has come close to being erased. Paleontologist Peter Ward explains what we can learn from previous mass extinctions

About Peter Ward

Part 4 of the TED Radio Hour episode Anthropocene

About Kenneth Lacovara's TED Talk

Earth's rocks and fossils can help us understand our own species. Paleontologist Kenneth Lacovara says there's "no doubt" that humans' impact on Earth will show up in the geological record.

About Kenneth Lacovara

When trying to demystify wine, one of the most misunderstood challenges for consumers can be the fizzy stuff.

There are all sorts of foreign names for what's commonly known as sparkling wine: Cava (from Spain), Prosecco (from Italy), Crémant (from many different regions in France), Sekt (from Germany). But all too often if we see tiny bubbles racing to the top of a glass, our first assumption is Champagne.

But not all sparkling wines taste alike – or are made alike.

This is the way the Rosetta ends: not with a bang, but with a slow-motion crash.

The historic spacecraft has transformed scientists' understanding of comets over the past two years, as it orbited the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet and sent a stream of images and data back to Earth.

Now scientists have steered it into the comet for a "Grand Finale" of data-collection, and Rosetta has lost contact with Earth forever.

What does it mean to declare that #blacklivesmatter in education?

Last month the Movement for Black Lives, representing elements of the Black Lives Matter movement and related groups, issued a detailed policy platform denouncing what it called "corporate-backed," "market driven" "privatization" in school reform, and helped set off a furor over this question.

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of a new insulin delivery system for people with Type 1 diabetes is a big deal.

With Type 1 diabetes, the pancreas makes little or no insulin so people have to replace it with either multiple daily injections or a pump. In either case, that process involves constant error-prone adjustments, particularly around food and exercise. Over the long term, high blood sugar levels can lead to organ damage, but over-correcting by giving more insulin can cause dangerous low blood sugars that can lead to unconsciousness.

When Alibaba founder Jack Ma bought the South China Morning Post in December of 2015, he held a meeting with his new employees. The billionaire tech tycoon from mainland China told reporters he wanted them to cover China more deeply, more broadly and more correctly.

"The more I know about the outside understanding of China," Ma said in English to his newly-acquired editorial staff, "the more I feel that most of the things are not correct."

He railed against "biased" foreign news coverage of China and said he wanted the paper to rise above the rest.

During the presidential debate on Monday night, Hillary Clinton raised a 1973 federal lawsuit brought against Donald Trump and his company for alleged racial discrimination at Trump housing developments in New York.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a special travel advisory Tuesday for pregnant women — and those trying to get pregnant.

They should "consider postponing nonessential travel" to 11 countries, the agency says. These countries include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam.

Starting Saturday, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is imposing new rules on cannabis packaging, labeling and testing.

Patrick Caldwell, who runs a marijuana packaging company out of Portland, said that’s putting retailers in a tricky situation.

“Everybody out there, every dispensary is having fire sales right now, trying to get rid of all the product that they’ve purchased in the last six months because they literally will not be able to sell them,” said Caldwell.

Jeff Banta became the first defendant to testify in the trial of seven occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon.

Banta’s testimony, which recounted the final days, hours and minutes of the 41-day occupation, broke the sometimes sterile environment of the federal courthouse in Portland.

Banta was one of the last four occupiers to surrender to the FBI along with Sean and Sandy Anderson, and David Fry. Thousands tuned in online to listen to the occupation’s dwindling moments as Fry contemplated ending his own life.