Sonari Glinton
Sonari Glinton is a NPR Business Desk Correspondent based at our NPR West bureau. He covers the auto industry, consumer goods, and consumer behavior, as well as marketing and advertising for NPR and Planet Money.
In this position, which he has held since late 2010, Glinton has tackled big stories including GM's road back to profitability and Toyota's continuing struggles. In addition, Glinton covered the 2012 presidential race, the Winter Olympics in Sochi, as well as the U.S. Senate and House for NPR.
Glinton came to NPR in August 2007 and worked as a producer for All Things Considered. Over the years Glinton has produced dozen of segments about the great American Song Book and pop culture for NPR's signature programs most notably the 50 Great Voices piece on Nat King Cole feature he produced for Robert Siegel.
Glinton began his public radio career as an intern at Member station WBEZ in Chicago. He worked his way through his public radio internships working for Chicago Jazz impresario Joe Segal, waiting tables and meeting legends such as Ray Brown, Oscar Brown Jr., Marian MacPartland, Ed Thigpen, Ernestine Andersen, and Betty Carter.
Glinton attended Boston University. A Sinatra fan since his mid-teens, Glinton's first forays into journalism were album revues and a college jazz show at Boston University's WTBU. In his spare time Glinton indulges his passions for baking, vinyl albums, and the evolution of the Billboard charts.
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Ford has just come off two straight years of record earnings. Its F-150 trucks are the best selling vehicles in America. But none of this was enough to save CEO Mark Fields' job. The career Ford executive has been replaced by a relative newcomer, Jim Hackett. One reason for the move: Ford's stock price tumbled nearly 40 percent in the three years Fields was at the helm.
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After two record sales years, investors are worrying about the health of the auto industry, especially as automakers are looking toward the future. -
The destruction from the 1992 Los Angeles riots resulted in more than $1 billion in damaged property and city leaders began to rebuild as the city was still in flames. But the project to fix the city, Rebuild LA, ultimately failed to do just that — rebuild.
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Takata pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $1 billion in a settlement with the Justice Department over its airbags that were prone to rupture. Three Takaya executives have been charged with conspiracy.
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With the rise of self-driving cars, there's a need to define the "five levels of autonomy," referring to the gradual change from driver-assisted to fully automated cars.
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The president-elect tweeted that he had influenced Ford's decision, but Ford says it never planned to close the Louisville, Ky., plant or to reduce jobs there. -
Overall, sedan sales in the U.S. are expected to show a drop between 6 and 8 percent. Consumers are going for SUVs and trucks instead. -
The smartphone chipmaker has agreed to buy NXP Semiconductors for $38 billion. The deal allows Qualcomm to rely less on the smartphone industry. NXP makes semiconductors for cars. -
Nearly 500,000 dirty diesel vehicles could be taken off the roads under a settlement approved by a judge in the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal. VW has agreed to pay up to $14.7 billion to resolve claims from consumers and the U.S. government. Customers will be compensated under a VW buyback program, and the company will also pay to offset the pollution caused by the rigged diesel vehicles.
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Wallonia, a French-speaking Belgian region with fewer than four million residents, is holding up Europe's free trade agreement with Canada.
