Among the major news headlines of this past week:
1) John Kerry and John Edwards accept their nominations as the Democratic Party’s Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates during the party’s convention in Boston.
2) Former Presidents Clinton and Carter and many other party faithful gave ringing endorsements to nominee John Kerry.
3) With the DNC over, President Bush [...]

The amazing Margaret Cho has made a career of bold, in-your-face self-deprecation. A self-described Korean-American fag hag, girl comic, and trash talker, she jokes about rough subjects made intimate: dating disorders and drug abuse, boundary-crossing sexual misadventure, and self-described sluttiness.
But it is Margaret Cho’s dark horse sensibility that has won the hearts of [...]

After four days of foot-stomping delegates, big parties and big speeches, the Democratic National Convention wrapped up last night with John Kerry’s acceptance speech and a rapturous response from the party faithful.
With a little over three months until the election and the Republican National Convention just around the corner, John Kerry and John Edwards will [...]

Last night, the Democrats officially nominated John Kerry, and tonight, he will address the delegates at the convention. Kerry’s advisors have been working hard to develop his image and craft a message for his campaign.
The Democrats have put many people forward to speak on Kerry’s behalf. We have heard from the Democratic Party’s top dogs, [...]

After the glitz and drama of the DNC is over, Kerry and Edwards still have a campaign to win. This week they have been surrounded by their party’s faithful. But to win the election they will need to reach beyond the Democratic Party’s traditional base. Many believe that this election will be decided by [...]

The nation’s attention is focused on the Democratic Convention in Boston this week. But on the other side of the world, Iraq is still in turmoil.
Today, 68 people were killed by a suicide car bomb in Baquba. Two coalition troops were killed in a clash with insurgents in western Iraq.
The Democrats largely oppose the [...]

The Democrats are enjoying the spotlight this week, and the delegates from the Democratic Party are in high spirits. You can’t walk two feet in downtown Boston without running into the red, white, and blue signs of the Democrats or an eager delegate.
Yes, the Democratic Party has taken over the city of Boston. All except [...]

John Kerry wants to be the next U.S. president and his background reads like a blueprint for U.S. presidents. He is tall, good-looking, and rich. He is a decorated Vietnam veteran who became an antiwar protester. For the past 20 years, he has served as the junior senator from Massachusetts and made a name for [...]

At the Democratic National Convention, the focus is on the upcoming November election. But long-term party issues are pushing their way to the forefront of convention conversations. While party experts advocate stability to ensure a successful presidential campaign, some new voices are clamoring for change.
Reverend Jesse Jackson gives his take on the soul of the [...]

On the opening night of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Democrats come together to lay out their platform. But some of the positions presidential nominee Senator John Kerry has taken, puts him at odds with his party.
What is John Kerry’s vision for the economy, healthcare, race relations, education, and national security? And how much [...]

The Democratic National Convention began today in Boston. Officials in both campaigns say the conventions are a chance to sway nearly 20 percent of still undecided voters. But what are those voters looking for in a candidate? John Harwood, the national political editor for The Wall Street Journal, discusses what he thinks [...]

Among the major news developments this past week:
1) Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the U.N. and Nasser Al-Kidwa, Palestinian observer at the U.N., address the General Assembly after its vote calling on Israel to dismantle its security fence.
2) U.S. troops kill 25 insurgents in a fire-fight in Iraq’s Sunni city of Ramadi.
3) Alan Greenspan testifies [...]

The new movie “I, Robot,” based on Isaac Asimov’s 1950 book of the same title and starring Will Smith, topped the box office on its opening weekend.
But Asimov and Hollywood diverge over robots. Asimov anticipated virtuous helpmates for humans. Hollywood robots tend to be revealed as Frankenstein monsters gone wrong. With real world [...]

Boston resident Tiziana Dearing was thinking about skipping town during the Democratic National Convention. Terror alerts, extra security measures, and the threats of attack filled her with a terrible foreboding, especially when her thoughts turned to her two-year-old daughter.
But in this radio diary, she explains why she decided to stick around Boston during the Democratic [...]

As the Democratic National Convention approaches, WBUR’s Audie Cornish reports on whether Boston, the host city, is ready.
Guests:
Audie Cornish, reporter WBUR

In 1969, an Arizona inventor named John Cover created the Taser, a stun gun that uses an electric current to incapacitate a target. Versions of the Taser technology have been used since the 70s, but since 1999, when the pistol-style M26 Taser was introduced, sales have boomed among police departments in the United States and [...]

After nearly two years of investigation, the 9/11 Commission released its final report today. The failures of 9/11 were many and terrible, but it was the future of American national security that got the biggest emphasis from the report.
At today’s press conference, former Congressman Lee Hamilton, Vice Chair of the Commission, urged a [...]

After nearly two years of investigation, the 9/11 Commission released its final findings report today. Among its findings, the Commission cited “operational opportunities” missed by the United States’s intelligence community. America’s institutions and leadership, said the Commission, failed in ways large, small and disastrous.
Emphasizing the gravity of the findings, Commission Chairman Thomas Kean urged the [...]

It is the summer reading season, but according to a recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts, fewer Americans are picking up books than ever before. Over the last year, less than half of all Americans read a novel, short story, poem or play. The study raised NEA chairman Dana [...]

Tomorrow comes the long awaited final report from the 9/11 Commission. It is expected to say that in battle against terrorism, America needs a new Intelligence czar to oversee all US intelligence operations.
But our guest tonight, respected senior officer at the CIA, says the problem the country faces is far bigger and far worse than [...]

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking conceded today that his famous 1975 theory on black holes was wrong, thus losing one of the most famous bets in the history of science. The author of “A Brief History of Time” originally said that no trace of the matter that enters a black hole ever re-emerges. This [...]

Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking today conceded that his famous 1975 theory on black holes was wrong, losing one of the most famous bets in the history of science. The author of “A Brief History of Time” had originally said that black holes destroy all matter that they suck up.
Fellow physicist John Preskill challenged that theory [...]

A growing number of states are legalizing everything from slot machines and casinos to race tracks and card rooms in order to solve their budget crises. Since the federal government authorized states and Indian tribes to negotiate gambling deals in 1988, more than 350 tribal casinos have sprouted across the country, and gambling is now [...]

Political philosopher Michael Walzer protested against Vietnam. When it was all over, he sat down and wrote “Just and Unjust War.” 30 years later, in a new book, he is still arguing about war but finding that some of his positions have changed over the years.
Click one of the “Listen” links to hear eminent [...]

35 years ago this month, the world first laid eyes on Frank Nepa. The Pennsylvania writer had survived his 34th birthday without too much trauma. Five years later, he is urging listeners to consider this excerpt from the Constitution of the United States:
“No person except a natural born citizen … shall be eligible [...]

A buzz is building in Washington over reported ties between Iran and Al Qaeda. Time magazine broke the story that the 9-11 commission report due out on Thursday is expected to describe interaction between the September 11th hijackers and Iran.
Hear a conversation with Time magazine’s Elaine Shannon on the significance of the report and [...]

Inflation is up but wages are not. And the economic recovery is benefiting the affluent more than the working class.
It is an economic recovery for the upper tier of the two-tier American economy. Low and middle-class Americans are finding themselves struggling at the bottom of the economic ladder. Their wages are falling and failing to [...]

As Israel prepares to withdraw from Gaza next year, Palestinians are starting to grapple with the reality of running the place by themselves. They are increasingly angry with their own leadership and demanding changes to eradicate corruption and develop civil society.
“Chaos” was the watchword in the Gaza Strip this past weekend. On Friday, Palestinian militants [...]

Attention-deficit disorder affects nearly eight million American adults but only fifteen percent of those with the disorder are actually aware of it.
Just a few years ago, adult A.D.D. was not even on the radar. Now that the problem has a name, the question of how to handle adult A.D.D is frustrating those with the disorder [...]

Among the major news of this past week:
1) Two car bombs and the assassination of the governor of Mosul wreak havoc in Iraq.
2) In the UK, the Butler report clears Prime Minister Tony Blair for pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.
3) In Bangkok, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan calls for greater US leadership in the war against [...]

Deep sea wreck divers risk their lives to find the kind of treasure that divers John Chatterdon and Richie Kohler turned up. It was an undocumented German U-boat, sunk just sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey.
Chatterton and Kohler devoted themselves to the mystery of the “U-Who” boat they uncovered. They battled [...]

On July 16, 1945, the fathers of the nuclear age, Robert Oppenheimer, General Leslie R. Groves, Kenneth Bainbridge and other scientists of the Manhattan Project, gathered at the Alamagordo Test Range in New Mexico to detonate the first atomic bomb at 5:29 a.m.
Sand at the site turned instantly to glass. The 19-kiloton explosion ushered [...]

Lifestyle mogul Martha Stewart will have to start making some curtains for her prison cell. This morning, a judge sentenced Stewart to 5 months behind bars and fined her 30,000 dollars for lying to investigators about her IMClone stock sale in 2001.
Charlie Gasparino, senior business writer for Newsweek, discusses how Martha Stewart responded to [...]

Fifty-nine years ago, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists conducted the world’s first atomic bomb test. Now, the disappearance of two computer data storage devices has brought operations to a temporary halt, and it’s far from the first security breach at this historic laboratory.
In 1999, allegations flew at Los Alamos in the Wen Ho [...]

This afternoon members of the US Senate proposed landmark, buyout legislation that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to place new restrictions on cigarette makers and pay tobacco farmers $12 billion dollars to give up federal quotas propping up their prices.
Elizabeth Shogren, staff writer for the LA Times, explains how weeks of deadlock were [...]

Connie Sullivan, owner of the Geneses Salon in Newton, Massachusetts, has been tapped to crop all the top mops for the 2004 Democratic National Convention. As official stylist for VIPs at the DNC, Sullivan will be the last line of defense against frizz and flyaways before Kerry, Edwards, Clinton and Kennedy step up to the [...]

Does money buy happiness, love or even sex? The answers come from the fast-growing field of “happiness economics.” A group of economists and psychologists in that field are touting the creation of so-called “national well-being indicators” which would track a country’s happiness in the same way gross domestic product measures a country’s economic strength.
Pure economics, [...]

At the NAACP convention in Philadelphia today, Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry pledged to members that he would be president of “all the people” if he is elected. Kerry contrasted his visit with President Bush’s refusal to speak to the group.
Vernon Clark, staff writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, gives the latest on the events at [...]

President Bush declined an invitation to speak at this week’s NAACP convention, making him the first president since Herbert Hoover not to appear. Now, the group’s chairman is urging its members to vote the president out of office.
Bush critics say the president is turning his nose up at a valuable voting bloc. Bush defenders say [...]

Today in London, results of Lord Butler’s official inquiry into British intelligence assertions on Iraq’s pre-war possession of chemical and biological weapons were released. In a speech given immediately after the report was released, Prime Minister Tony Blair faced the implications of the inquiry’s findings head on.
Glenn Frankel, Washington Post correspondent in London, describes the [...]

New recommendations from the National Cholesterol Education Program have lowered the acceptable level of cholesterol for patients at moderate risk of developing heart disease. The new guidelines, endorsed by the American Heart Association, The American College of Cardiology and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, call for significantly increasing the number of Americans [...]

Since 1992, Family Circle magazine has invited prospective First Ladies to submit a cookie recipe, and then asked its readers to vote on the best one for its quadrennial cookie bake-off. Each time, the one with the most popular recipe has ended up First Lady. This year, Laura Bush’s Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk cookies take [...]

A suicide bomb attack killed at least 10 people and injured 40 others, including a US soldier, in Baghdad. In a separate incident, the governor of Mosul was assassinated when attackers hit his convoy south of the city.
Thanassis Cambanis, a Boston Globe correspondent in Iraq, discusses how Iraqis are reacting to the news of the [...]

Recent projections forecast that China is well on its way to becoming a superpower in manufacturing, technology, and telecommunications. It is now the world’s second largest consumer of oil, and is exporting everything from TVs to DVD players to cell phones.
Americans benefit but are also threatened by the “China” price being set lower and lower. [...]

Hours ago in Iran today, Khaled al-Harbi, a Saudi-born associate of Osama bin Laden, turned himself in to the Saudi embassy. Al-Harbi had been pictured praising bin Laden and the attacks on America in a post 9-11 video tape aired around the world.
John Diamond, intelligence reporter for USA Today, discusses why Al-Harbi has turned himself [...]

Today in Bangkok, Thailand at the International Conference on AIDS, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan suggested that the United States is not fighting the battle against AIDS with the same kind of energy it has brought to the War on Terror.
The United States has pledged $15 billion to combat AIDS. But how that money is [...]