Two and a half thousand years ago, a man named Herodotus wandered the ancient world, trying to make sense of the great war between the Greeks and Persians that had shaped his times.
He gathered wild tales of fabulous creatures and arrogant kings and queens. He also heard of the very real clash of the armies [...]

The travel posters from Kenya are all “Out of Africa” beauty, safari paradise shots and handsome Masai tribesmen with their red robes and spears. And for decades, Kenya was held up as East Africa’s great hope for democracy and development.
But in the last month, after a disputed — observers say stolen — presidential election, the [...]

From the misty, half-attuned, still-in-the-American-Century shores of the United States, China and India can look like peas in a pod: two rising Asian giants with screaming growth rates and lots of what used to be American jobs.
Look closer, and these are very different cats. China is the factory floor and India the back-office, software shop. [...]

Never count a determined man out. John McCain was down for the count last summer. Broke and written off and flying coach. Now he’s taken Florida, and the Republican race to Super Tuesday has a whole new complexion.
Giuliani is headed for the sidelines. Mike Huckabee hanging in, maybe for a VP seat with Florida’s winner. [...]

The issue of women and power is very much in the news. But look beyond Hillary Clinton’s push for the White House, and only two percent of the CEOs of the Fortune 1000 are women. Two percent — forty years after women stood up for liberation.
Nina DiSesa has grabbed and wielded corporate power. She’s been [...]

The day after President Bush’s final State of the Union address, it’s hard not to think about this man’s legacy.
With grinding wars underway and the economy in trouble, the Republicans who would succeed Bush in the White House barely mention his name.
But they do talk about Ronald Reagan — almost ceaselessly. There was a time [...]

It’s not new but it’s truer than ever — more and more young American couples are waiting later and later to start a family and have their first baby.
Fifty-two percent of college graduate first-time mothers are now thirty or older — not just out of high school, not just out of college, but well into [...]

A week from tomorrow, coast to coast, and with everything on the line, the biggest day of presidential primary voting in American history will take place. On Super Tuesday, February 5th, nearly two dozen states are in play — and big ones.
The Democrats are thundering for the big day. Barack Obama is fresh off a [...]

Of the world’s seven thousand languages nearly half will disappear by the end of this century. Their extinction means the end of entire cultures, traditions, and histories.
K. Davis Harrison and Gregory Anderson are on a mission to save these dying languages. They’re linguists, but not the kind who spend their lives in libraries and classrooms.
They [...]

If you were off planet the past few days and returned to Wall Street this morning, you might be forgiven for thinking that all was well this week. The market tanked just a few days ago but by yesterday it had all but recovered.
So what happened? That’s among the big stories under our microscope today.
Also, [...]

Snowy Chicago may not leap to mind as a great center of Mexican-American life and culture, but it is. A million sons and daughters of Mexico live in the Windy City.
At the heart of that community is a musical sensation called Sones de Mexico — six musicians, fifty instruments, and a big world of music.
Their [...]

Bill Clinton started out low-key in Hillary Clinton’s campaign — but no more. As Hillary and Barack Obama have gone to the mat in the heat of the primaries, the former President Clinton is all over this race — up to his elbows in the fight, throwing real punches.
Obama’s Iraq message? A “fairy tale.” A [...]

In their new movie, “The Bucket List,” when Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman’s characters get the news that they’re going to die, and soon, they set out to do it all — skydive, climb Everest, see the Pyramids, travel the world.
When high school chemistry teacher Bryan Cranston is given six months to live in AMC’s [...]

In the world’s hyper-ventilating global stock markets, the bleeding has slowed, for the moment.
After two days of outright panic on markets in Bombay and Hong Kong and across Europe, the US Federal Reserve Bank jammed through a huge rate cut. President Bush and Henry Paulson and Congressional leaders hustled to a big photo op, talked [...]

As stock markets around Asia and the world headed south today, India’s finance minister tried to calm the selling: “Look,” he said, “India’s economy is headed for a booming 9 percent growth this year.” So he hopes.
And what will Indians spend that plenty on? India’s industrial giant Tata hopes they will soon be spending it [...]

In the glare of presidential campaign lights and stock market bonfires, it’s almost possible for the war in Iraq to disappear.
But not if you’re a soldier, or an Iraqi, or cutting the checks in Washington, or feeling the strain at the Pentagon.
Iraq’s Defense Minister says U.S. troops will be needed for another decade. John McCain [...]

Martin Luther King Day has a little more heat on it this year than some. From the cauldron of presidential politics has spun the question: who mattered more in the earth-moving civil rights revolution of the 1960’s — Martin Luther King, or Lyndon Baines Johnson?
The preacher or the president? Crazy question, say those who were [...]

“Faith doesn’t just influence me,” Mike Huckabee told evangelicals last week. “It defines me.” And then he lost in South Carolina to John McCain.
In Nevada, labor lined up for Barack Obama, then Clinton took the vote. And Latinos carved their own way over political and color lines.
These are big players, speaking for the first time [...]

We’re looking at the amazing story through history of the American stomach and the extremes of consumption and digestion.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guest:
Frederick Kaufman, author of the new book “A Short History of the American Stomach.” He’s a contributing editor at Harper’s magazine and wrote the article “Wasteland: A Journey Through the American Cloaca” for the February issue.

Mitt Romney’s Michigan gold. An economic stimulus package brews in Washington. And cloned meat is cleared for the supermarket. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
Guests:
David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, has been advisor to four U.S. presidents.
Ellen Goodman, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated [...]