With the first in the nation primary swirling around us, we turn to the spread of the Tea Party…circa 1774. We’re talking about the Annapolis Tea Party…the New York Tea Party, and other protests that boiled over in the colonies from Maine to North Carolina. These copycat protests were buried by the 92,000 pounds shoved overboard in Boston.

Long before playing a role in sparking the American Revolution, tea drove history, something largely unknown to me when i took a proper afternoon tea in Boston, with a man affectionately known as “the Nose." Giles Hilton is famous for his ability to sniff out the finest tea leaves from around the world. He’s Teamaster at Whittard of Chelsea, tea merchants in England since 1886. Giles gave me the chance to steep in his knowledge of just what it takes to make the perfect cup of tea.

Giles Hilton on UK Food TV

The owner of a Colebrook plant that exploded in 2010 faces criminal charges. NHPR’s Chris Jensen reports.

Coos County Attorney Robert Mekeel says a grand jury has indicted  Craig Sanborn the owner of the Black Mag plant in Colebrook.

He faces manslaughter and negligent homicide charges for an explosion that killed Jesse Kennett and Donald Kendall.

A third man was badly injured.

The indictments came down late Friday.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration officials have said they were not aware of the plant before the explosion.

On Morning Edition Monday, Steve Inskeep spoke with six women in Derry, N.H. who all plan to vote in Tuesday's first presidential primary.

Inskeep dropped by the home of Elaine Sweeney, where the women gathered for coffee, donuts and wine on Sunday to talk politics. Her house in Derry overlooks Beaver Lake, covered this time of year with a thin film of ice.

Max Zorn is a packing tape artist. No, I don't mean he's really good at taping up moving boxes, I mean he makes really intricate pieces of art by slicing up bits of brown packing tape and arranging them into people and scenes. Packing tape is translucent, of course, so Max hangs the finished pieces next to streetlights in Amsterdam.

Check out the timelapse below of Max doing his thing, set to hip hop. And resist the urge to ask him to help you move on the first of the month.

No matter how much you love a candidate's jobs plan, their ideas around health care, their environmental platform or their views on immigration, if you want a Republican in the White House and they can't beat the President, it may not be the best choice.  Some of that has to do with familiarity of the candidate, some has to do with money, and some has to do with those platforms and how they not only counter the President's but fall in favor with many independents who may be on the fence.

As filmmaker and freelance journalist Darren Garnick discovered, his son's simple question may have revealed a side of the GOP hopefuls we wouldn't otherwise have seen.

Watch what happens when Ari asked Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Herman Cain whose tights they'd most like to wear...and why. Darren and Ari join us to talk about what it means when candidate invokes Superman or Spiderman, or, in the case of Ron Paul, when he can't seem to pick a hero at all.

Song /Artist / Album

Hey Ho / Dave Carter /  Sing Out - V49#3

Maggie's Farm / David Grisman, John Hartford & Mike Seeger /  Retrograss [Live]

Walkin' / David Mallett /  Midnight on the Water

Kubla Khan / David Olney /  Live at Norm's River Road House, Vol. 1

Campaign Trail / John Gorka /  Between Five And Seven

You Voted Red / Joel Mabus /  No Worries Now

Dear Abby / John Prine /  Prime Prine

Devil Take The Farmer / Randy Browning /  Radical Rags

For Real / Bob Franke /  The Other Evening in Chicago

In the closing hours of the primary, the campaigns are turning to the airwaves to make one last push for votes.  About a third of the electorate say they have yet to make up their mind.  Some 60 television ads a day might help them decide. That might sound like a lot but the real story of advertising in this primary is,  there’s so little of it.

Two candidates have dominated the New Hampshire television market for several months.  Texas congressman Ron Paul, often cast as a firebrand, is now running an ad aimed at burnishing his image as a reliable leader.

At last, the rivals who were supposed to savage front-runner Mitt Romney in the final weekend before Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire got down to business.

In the opening minutes of their debate Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, several of those chasing Romney in the polls let fly the roundhouse punches they'd been pulling through weeks and months of TV debates.