In a little less than an hour, President George Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry will square off in the first presidential debate. The stage is the University of Miami, in the all-important state of Florida, and both sides are expected to come out ready to battle.
The latest polls give Bush a five-point lead [...]

Geologists today said there is a 70 percent chance that Mount Saint Helen’s will erupt sometime in the next few months. The eruption is unlikely to be anywhere near the volcano’s cataclysmic explosion in 1980, when blowing ash covered towns as far as 250 miles away. But scientists say that earthquakes around the [...]

The war in Iraq has taken its toll on the American military, and a sizeable chunk of the National Guard and Reserve troops are now actively deployed. With retention rates being artificially propped up by a Pentagon “stop loss” order there is concern that the United States does not have enough ground troops to enforce [...]

John Mack, the Harvard psychiatrist who became renowned for his controversial research of people who claimed to be abducted by aliens, died Monday when he was struck by an alleged drunken driver in London. He was 74.
Mack won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1977 biography of the World War I British soldier T. E. [...]

Architect Daniel Libeskind’s plans for the World Trade Center site brought hope to a battered post-9/11 New York and nation.
His plans envisioned design-signature buildings soaring around a changed Ground Zero, bustling offices, theaters, museums, and a park. Yet, he is caught in an ongoing battle to realize both his vision and plans.
Hear Daniel Libeskind talk [...]

Howard Dean’s candidacy was a wild ride, filled with inspirational highs and more than a few moments of loss and regret. In the end, despite months of dizzyingly elevated poll numbers and fundraising totals around the country, Dean won only one primary in his home state of Vermont. Still, his impact on this year’s [...]

According to a new security report out today, this September has been one of the bloodiest, most brutal months in Iraq since the American invasion. According to the Special Operations-Consulting Security Management Group, not a single province in Iraq escaped attacks in the 30-day period, including Iraq’s Kurdish region in the north.
The city of [...]

For the first time since the Vietnam War, Americans are looking at foreign policy as a top issue that will decide their vote. How President George Bush and Senator John Kerry shape their foreign policy positions on the U.N., Iraq, and the war on terror may win or lose them the election.
Hear former National Security [...]

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation today announced the winners of this year’s “genius grants.” The 23 honorees will each receive a half-million dollars, no strings attached. The winners include a molecular biologist, a marine roboticist, a glass technologist, a Ragtime pianist, and a former barber turned bookseller.
Rueben Martinez’s bookstore is [...]

Oil prices slipped over the $50-a-barrel mark for the first time ever, and analysts say that prices may rise even higher. Clashes between the army and rebel militants in Nigeria and Hurricane Ivan’s passage last week over the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico helped push the price of oil to its new high.
Hear Bob Tippee, editor-in-chief [...]

The net worth of Forbes’ 400 richest Americans hit $1 trillion this year. That $45 million more than in the past 12 months. From 31-year-old Google founder Sergey Brin to 96-year-old oil tycoon Max Fisher, they range in age and geography, but not economic class.
While it wasn’t always the case, America is now the most [...]

Fannie Mae is the second largest financial institution in the U.S., worth 1 trillion dollars. Today, the mortgage finance company agreed to increase its capital on hand and submit to tighter oversight from the government.
Hear Bob Hagerty of the Wall Street Journal talk about what the agreement means for mortgage holders and the markets.
Guests:
Bob Hagerty, [...]

For decades, the orthodox view on free trade has been strong and simple: countries do what they do best, and everyone ends up a winner. But now, an economist who literally wrote the book on economics is demanding a rethink.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson is challenging conventional “win-win” assumptions about free trade. The [...]

In just three days, George W. Bush and John Kerry will take the stage at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, for the first of three televised debates.
Both candidates were preparing for those debates today. Both also found time today in their campaign speeches to preview themes likely to be raised in [...]

A proxy battle is taking place in the national fight over stem cell research. In November, Californians will vote on Proposition 71, which could bypass federal restrictions on research funding and have far reaching implications for the rest of the country.
If passed, Proposition 71 would take $3 billion in taxpayer-backed loans and [...]

This week, President Bush defended going to Iraq at the United Nations and senator John Kerry spoke against the war in Iraq.
On Point host Tom Ashbrook and news analyst Jack Beatty look back at this week’s major news.
Guests:
Tom Ashbrook and Jack Beatty

He was born Stephen Demetri Georgiou, son of a Greek Cypriot London restaurateur and a Swedish Baptist mother. He gained fame as Cat Stevens, and his music helped define the 60s and 70s.
In the late 70s, the singer-songwriter converted to Islam, and in 1977, Cat Stevens became Yusuf Islam. He turned his back [...]

Yom Kippur or the “Day of Atonement” is the holiest day on the Jewish calendar and marks the end of a ten-day long period of reflection. This year, Yom Kippur falls in the midst of reports of genocide in the Sudan, hostage beheadings in Iraq, and mortar bombings in Israel.
Rabbi Harold Schulweis of the [...]

President Bush is stepping up attacks that his Democratic challenger, John Kerry, is giving comfort to terrorists and undermining the war in Iraq.
Dana Milbank, White House correspondent for the Washington Post, reports on the recent rhetoric from both sides.
Guests:
Dana Milbank, White House correspondent The Washington Post

After 36 years, CBS’s “60 Minutes” still makes news with its pioneering format, now widely imitated, and its high-profile though aging stable of stars. The program has left its signature on world events and shaken up the often predictable world of television news.
But the forced resignation of the show’s creator and a series of credibility [...]

After weathering three devastating storms over the past several weeks, Floridians find themselves once again bracing for a hurricane. The National Hurricane Center is predicting that Hurricane Jeanne, which has already killed more than 1,000 people in Haiti, might hit Florida’s eastern coast on Sunday or Monday.
Florida resident Jeff Klinkenberg is getting a little tired [...]

Fourteen percent of Americans say healthcare is the most important problem facing the country. One in six Americans are uninsured. Health insurance premiums are growing in the double digits.
Bush says Kerry is out to nationalize health care. Kerry says under Bush’s plan more than one million people would lose their coverage. Voters are [...]

Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi today addressed a joint session of Congress and told lawmakers that despite struggles and setbacks, “the values of liberty and democracy” are taking hold in Iraq. Later, in a Rose Garden press conference, President Bush defended U.S. efforts in Iraq.
Hear excerpts of the Allawi and Bush speeches as well [...]

On the eve of the Iraq War, Colin Powell laid out the links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The chief one among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, allegedly an Al Qaeda agent whom Hussein gave refuge in Baghdad.
Recently, Al Qaeda experts have been questioning the ties between Zarqawi and Osama Bin Laden, arguing that [...]

A Texas grand jury has indicted three aides to Representative Tom DeLay on charges including raising illegal corporate contributions and directing them to state candidates in the 2002 elections.
An ethics investigation has already been swirling around the House majority leader for months, and these indictments prompted renewed calls for the House ethics committee to step [...]

Time is running out to save a British hostage in Iraq. And U.S. and Iraqi officials are disagreeing over the release of a female Iraqi scientist, now in American custody, as a bargaining chip.
An al Qaeda ally kidnapped three building contractors last Thursday, demanding the release of female Iraqi prisoners, and has already beheaded [...]

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed welfare-reform legislation that sent nine million women and children off the welfare rolls.
For seven years, New York Times poverty reporter Jason DeParle has followed the stories of three former welfare mothers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Tonight he talks about their experiences navigating life without a monthly welfare check, their [...]

Personality testing has become a ubiquitous method of categorizing people in pursuits from education to work to therapy. But in efforts to better understand ourselves, are American institutions recklessly brushing over the nuance of human personality?
Proponents of testing assert that by learning more about a persons personality type businesses save money on expensive employee [...]

The Food and Drug Administration announced late last week that it agrees with an earlier finding that antidepressants can raise the risk of suicidal behavior in some young people. The agency will begin labeling the drugs with a “black box” warning, the strongest type of warning for prescription drugs. Some advocates, including the [...]

The newest addition to the National Mall opened today in Washington with a procession of thousands representing Native Nations from across the country. The National Museum of the American Indian is the Smithsonian’s 15th national museum, and the first dedicated to the history and cultures of indigenous groups of the Western Hemisphere. The [...]

President Bush and the U.N. have been vocally at odds over the past four years. But in his speech today to the United Nations General Assembly, the president stressed the need for cooperation between the U.N. and the U.S.
Bush’s address defended the U.S.-led mission in Iraq and called on the U.N. to help with [...]

There is an intense debate within the administration over US policy towards Iran. Opinions differ over whether to push for regime change as Iran continues to move ahead with a nuclear program that it claims is for peaceful purposes.
New York Times reporter Steven Weisman breaks down the positions.
Guests:
Steven Weisman, New York Times reporter

The George W. Bush administration is famous for being “on message,” and delivering a consistent and polished political perspective no matter what. Such consistency apparently does not extend to every member of the conservative universe.
In “Where the Right Went Wrong,” veteran pundit and occasional presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan offers up scathing criticisms of Bush’s [...]

President Bush made his ninth visit to the Granite State today. Speaking at a rally in Derry, New Hampshire, Bush struck back moments after John Kerry had delivered a stinging critique of his administration’s handling of the Iraq war. Kerry’s remarks, Bush said, follow a pattern of “twisting in the wind.”
Hear an excerpt from [...]

Cornel West, one of the preeminent intellectuals in America, wrote powerfully about a sense of nihilism in Black America in his 1993 bestseller, “Race Matters”. Now ten years later, after a high-profile move from Harvard to Princeton, Cornel West is again writing about nihilism in America in his new sequel, “Democracy Matters”.
American democracy is being [...]

Tonight, Dan Rather is the news. Just minutes ago on The CBS Evening News, the veteran CBS anchor responded to mounting questions swirling around documents used in his 60 Minutes story about President Bush’s service record during the Vietnam War.
Hear an excerpt from Dan Rather’s interview with the source who “misled” him, and a discussion [...]

President Bush has repeatedly misled the American public and compiled a “long litany of misjudgments with terrible consequences,” said Senator John Kerry in a major speech about Iraq today at New York University.
Kerry called the invasion “a colossal failure of judgment” and said that the president was in “major denial.” And for the first time, [...]

Rock music has always meant rebellion, but music critic Tim Riley says that when it comes to the question of gender, rock music, more than almost any other medium, pushed the boundaries of sexual politics in profound ways. Rock ‘n’ roll, he says, made us better men and women, better parents, better partners, and [...]

Republicans want him on Florida’s presidential ballot. Democrats are fighting hard to get him off. This week, Ralph Nader’s bid to run in the Sunshine State fell into the hands of the state’s judiciary.
Hear the latest from the Florida Supreme Court as tomorrow’s deadline for mailing absentee ballots looms.
Guests:
John Kennedy, Tallahassee Bureau Chief [...]

In the last century, the great philosophical battle between religion and science concerned evolutionary biology. In this century, Yale University psychologist Paul Bloom believes religion and science will struggle to agree on exactly what constitutes the human soul.
Many believe one’s soul is separate from the physical body, permanent and indestructible. Bloom instead thinks that the [...]

John Kerry addressed the National Guard Association today, accusing President Bush of not being truthful with the American people. Kerry said that the situation in Iraq is deteriorating but the President is “living in a fantasy world of spin” by making it sound as if everything is going well.
Hear an excerpt of John Kerry’s [...]

A classified intelligence report prepared for president Bush last July counters the Administration’s repeated assertions of progress in Iraq. New York Times reporter Doug Jehl has interviewed officials who have seen the report, which outlines an Iraq “whose stability would remain tenuous” and the possibility of a civil war.
Doug Jehl describes what is in the [...]

Americans spend $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. But those billions aren’t necessarily buying better drugs, says Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine.
Pharmaceutical marketing and administration costs far outstrip those of research and development, Angell says. And rather than coming out with innovative, new drugs, companies are [...]

A poll out this week from the Annenberg Public Policy Center shows that a majority of Americans think the country is going “seriously off on the wrong track.” Georgia resident Bill Ferguson shares that level of pessimism. But he doesn’t think that any of the candidates for President are willing to change the [...]

An effort is underway in Colorado to change the winner-take-all system of electoral vote allocation. The proposed Amendment to the state’s constitution would allocate electoral votes proportionally according to the popular vote.
If passed, Amendment 36 would make Colorado the first state to do so, though both Maine and Nebraska have made allocation changes. In those [...]

Martha Stewart is heading to prison. The domestic diva announced today that she wants to begin her five-month sentence as soon as possible, rather than wait for the appeal of her conviction.
Stewart maintains that she has a strong case for appeal, and will reportedly go ahead with it. But she says the best way to [...]