By guest host Jane Clayson:
When it comes to tales of addiction, it’s the high-profile stories we hear of starlets flitting in and out of rehab as though it’s a weekend retreat.
Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears have made headlines for seeking treatment. Robert Downey, Jr. has gone in four times; Daniel Baldwin, nine.
Critics charge their [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Fresh U.S. intelligence has put all eyes on the northwest provinces of Pakistan as the hot zone for al Qaeda terrorists. The timing couldn’t be worse.
America’s key ally, Pakistan’s moderate President Pervez Musharraf, has sent troops to the area along the Afghanistan border, but his country is in crisis with escalating [...]

Guests:
Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani journalist and bestselling author
Seth Jones, political scientist and counter-terrorism authority at the Rand Corporation
Evan Kohlmann, consultant on international terrorism

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Think about the English people, and you might think of stereotypical traits: a cool reserve; a sense of irony; a love of gardens and pubs; a stiff upper lip.
But British cultural critic A.A. Gill has one word for all that Englishness: rubbish. The English are, above all, an angry people, full [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
In the suburbs of Washington and all around the country today, there’s a small army of civilian and military experts and soldiers who did their time in Iraq and are now back, brooding, ashamed and angry.
They are angry about how badly wrong their mission went, about how they might have done [...]

James Hand hails from the small town heart of Texas and he has been singing and playing his way through dance halls, salons and jute joints for about four decades now.
He began at age 12 and now at 55 he is just out with a national debut album.
His music is catapulting out of Texas, across [...]

It has been the kind of week to make people hot under the collar.
Senator Chuck Schumer accused U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales of lying; Lieutenant General Ray Odierno said militant networks in Iraq are getting weapons and training from Iran; the Dow took a plunge; and White House aides are held in contempt of [...]

Fresh off the big final blackout of the Sopranos finales, writer and producer Matthew Weiner is on to smokier pastures with his new show “Mad Men.” It’s a stylish, smart-talking look at the golden days of advertising: the sexist world of Madison Avenue circa 1960, where self-assured ad men brag that they invent reality [...]

Entrepreneur Steve Barr is on a mission to replace the worst public school in Los Angeles with charter schools. Barr has got an army of supporters behind him, from union organizers to teachers unions, from LA’s mayor to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Barr has got brass knuckles, and with ten schools up and [...]

For Stephen Carter the plot thickens again.
The Yale Law School professor-turned-novelist struck gold with his debut novel “The Emperor of Ocean Park” – a searing murder mystery that took readers inside the world of black America’s upper crust.
This summer, Carter’s turning up the heat again with his new thriller “New England White.” The plot and [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Declining birth rates in the Western world may tip the balance of power to the East. A top intelligence advisor says the economy, international security, even the United State’s stature, are all on the line. And it’s because we are not having enough children.
But a leading economist disagrees: [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Doctors are driven by a passion to save lives but their earliest training ground is a roomful of death. It’s the human anatomy lab where cadavers are the constant companions of these students of medicine.
Into this hidden realm comes a 28-year-old poet who yearns to be a doctor. [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Last night, the presidential debate took a high-tech turn as YouTube videos of fiery citizens were put right in the face of candidates. Lots of talk-back from average Joes and Jills to the likes of Barack, Hillary and John.
All of it was against the backdrop of a campaign that has become [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Times have changed and so have the anchors. But a lot has stayed the same. Revenues still add up to hundreds of millions of dollars a year. A white male anchor still dominates the rating.
But there are some differences. CBS put a woman behind the anchor desk–a very expensive one by [...]

By guest host Jane Clayson:
Federal funding for abstinence education is on the rise: a proposed $191 million dollars for 2008, up $28 million from 2007. But recent studies are raising questions, finding no difference in sexual activity between kids with abstinence education and those without.
Proponents of abstinence say the studies are not reflective of the [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Ten years ago, J.K. Rowling was a 30-year-old single mom living on welfare in a chilly one-bedroom flat in Edinburgh, and no one had heard of Harry Potter.
Ten years and 325 million copies later, the Harry Potter series is a legend and J.K. Rowling is a billionaire, richer than the Queen of [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Wait until September, the country was told again and again. Wait until September to hear about the surge and Iraq.
Wait until September to hear from the generals. It was all September … until yesterday. Now, it’s November, we’re told, before any real conclusions can be drawn on the war.
Senate Democrats, pushing [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Martin Sexton is the self-taught singer-songwriter out of Syracuse, who made his chops playing for change on the streets of Boston and is now filling halls from the Roseland Ballroom in New York to The Fillmore in San Francisco.
Sexton’s got a big voice and a big heart and a big sense of [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
When “No Child Left Behind” became the law of the land for American public schools in 2001, George W. Bush was riding high and the idea of holding schools accountable for student performance won overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress.
Now, after five years of testing and, often, teaching to the test, the whole [...]

By host Tom Ashbrook:
Akiko Busch was facing milestones and loss and change. She walked down to the nearest river and jumped in, and swam across. And just kept swimming across American rivers — the Hudson, the Delaware, the Monongahela, the Susquehanna, the Mississippi, and more.
She just keeps swimming, for herself, her peace of [...]