It’s conventional wisdom: stress ages people. But now that theory is making the leap to scientific fact. A team of researchers have discovered how chronic stress physically affects cells in a way that accelerates aging.
Hear Washington Post science writer Rob Stein talk about the study’s findings.
Guests:
Rob Stein, National science reporter for the Washington Post

The U.S. Supreme Court heard yesterday oral arguments on whether or not the federal government has a constitutional authority to arrest patients in states that allow doctors to prescribe marijuana to them.
Patients say they need it to take the edge off their pain. The federal government says allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana could open the [...]

Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge announced today he will be stepping down in February, unless his successor is approved before then. Ridge is the first man to hold the post, which was created in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. He was given the unenviable task of creating a new bureaucracy out [...]

There’s something for everyone in the $388-billion 2005 Omnibus spending bill that Congress passed last week. It allocates money to projects like the B.B. King Museum, the Tiger Woods Foundation, and the swanky Biltmore Hotel in Florida, while making big cuts in veterans’ health care.
Is this a way to run a government? With federal debt [...]

Saying that he needs a break from public service, the President of the NAACP, Kweisi Mfume, announced today that he is stepping down as leader of the nation’s largest civil right organization.
Nine years ago, the former Congressman inherited an organization tarnished by scandal and riddled with debt. He has shepherded it into an era of [...]

Today, Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments against and for legalization of medical marijuana. The Court will decide whether or not individual states can let seriously ill patients ease their pain by smoking marijuana, a drug the federal government has designated illegal.
The Bush administration is appealing a lower court decision that allows two California women [...]

For centuries, scholars didn’t believe William Shakespeare could have written the plays and sonnets that bore his name. They were too sophisticated and literary for a son of simple country parents, they claimed.
Now, in his new book, “Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare,” scholar Stephen Greenblatt has set out to show how religious, [...]

There are few books that can stir up as much passion as the Bible. When Professor of Hebrew Robert Alter set out to create a new translation he knew he was on sensitive ground. But Alter says the translations that Christians, Jews, and secularists have been relying on for years are fraught with what he [...]

The crisis over the November 21 presidential election results that has unfolded in the streets of Kiev during the last few days is escalating by the minute.
Supporters of Prime Minister Yanukovich, who has claimed victory, are threatening to secede if the Moscow-backed candidate is not sworn in. Backers of the opposition candidate Victor Yushchenko have [...]

What makes a peron a politician? And what makes that politician a larger-than-life legend or a “pol”? From William Jennings Bryant to Ronald Reagan, writers have been digging deep into the persona of political leaders and bringing them to light in prose.
In his new book, “Pols: Great Writers on American Politicians from Byran to Reagan,” [...]

The New Yorker was referred to as a “comic weekly” when it first hit the stands in 1925. Humor has been a mainstay of the magazine ever since, with wits from A.J. Leibling to Dorothy Parker, and of course, the cartoons.
To celebrate that legacy of laughter, contemporary New Yorker regulars, humorists Christopher Buckley, Calvin [...]

The son of singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and French-Canadian Kate McGarrigle, Rufus Wainwright grew up surrounded by music. He began studying piano at the age of 6 and began touring with his mother at the age of 13.
His music has been described as something between baroque and pop, with splashes of cabaret and emotional, complex, [...]

Some of America’s most revered writers have made their reputations in the pages of the New Yorker Magazine. In 1999, the magazine let its work jump from the printed page to public venues for the first New Yorker Festival, where writers read their work.
Among many of the fiction writers who read from their [...]

Thanksgiving is a famous American holiday that celebrates the country’s good fortune, its pluck and prosperity. But don’t think for a moment, says Washington Post correspondent T.R. Reid, that blessings and pluck are the province of America alone.
In a new book, T.R. Reid says Europe, not the U.S., is the emerging superpower on a roll. [...]

Director Oliver Stone’s new movie “Alexander,” starring Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie, brings the life of Alexander the Great to the big screen.
Alexander the Great was just 32 years old when he died 2,300 years ago in Babylon – modern day Iraq. Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan and more were all his. They [...]

The season of excess begins tomorrow with Thanksgiving and continues on to Christmas and New Year’s, says Newsday columnist Susan Cheever.
In this radio diary, she reminds us to put aside our petty family squabbles and super-sized appetites and remember why we celebrate Thanksgiving in the first place.
Guests:
Susan Cheever, columnist for Newsday, her latest book is [...]

In the spring of 2003, the Bush administration sent Noah Feldman to give advice on the drafting of an Iraqi constitution and the country’s fledgling democracy. Now, Feldman says, the U.S. must stay in Iraq until that democracy is real.
Feldman thinks democracy is not only just the best political arrangement for Iraq but the [...]

As violence riddles Iraq, the American-backed interim Iraqi government is struggling to train enough troops to ensure safety for the January 30, 2005 elections.
Hear New York Times Reporter Edward Wong from Baghdad discuss whether Iraq will be ready for the elections.
Guests:
Edward Wong, New York Times Reporter in Baghdad

Veteran newsman Dan Rather will step down as the CBS network’s top news anchor after almost a quarter of a century.
Rather, who was embroiled in a journalism scandal last September over his reporting about President Bush’s service in the National Guard during the Vietnam War, is leaving his role early next year.
Rather is the second [...]

U.S. President Bush came away with a clear message from an economic forum of Pacific Rim countries this weekend: stop the decline of the U.S. dollar. The chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan warned last Friday that the U.S. needs to change course or face the consequences.
The worst-case scenario of a freefall [...]