On May 5, 1993, the bodies of three 8-year-old boys were found murdered by a creek in West Memphis, Arkansas. One month later, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were arrested and later convicted of brutally raping, mutilating and killing the boys. After spending 18 years in prison, they were released after entering Alford pleas, a controversial plea in which defendants plead guilty while maintaining their innocence. The "Paradise Lost" trilogy has traced all of the case's developments.

Directors Joseph Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky have been following the case since 1993, and the first film in their series, "Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills," released in 1996, was largely responsible for attracting national attention to the West Memphis Three. The third film in the trilogy, "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory," has been nominated for an academy award in the feature documentary category.

Whether through hours of rote memorization or mnemonic devices, there's no real "secret" behind making or keeping a memory. Conversely, the best way to forget something painful has been a source of endless cliche and conjecture — until now. New developments in the understanding of the brain have made it possible to help trauma patients erase specific memories. When a memory is formed, new linkages are held together by PKM-zeta. To undo these connections, the enzyme only needs to be blocked.

Dr. Todd Sacktor is distinguished professor of physiology, pharmacology and neurology at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn.

Abigail Fisher, a white student from Sugarland, Texas, sued the University of Texas after she failed to receive admission. In "Fisher v. Texas," she claims she was turned down even though her application was just as strong as minority students who got in. Sometime in the fall, this case will be heard by the Supreme Court, the first affirmative action case heard in nearly a decade. With more conservative justices on the bench, the case could overturn the 2003 ruling that allows universities to take race into account during admissions as long as they didn't quantify their process.

Richard Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and the author of "The Remedy: Class, Race, and Affirmative Action." Lee Bollinger is president of Columbia University in New York.

Greece has once again narrowly avoided defaulting on their $172 billion debt by agreeing to more austerity measures and selling off profits to euro zone countries. However, it's unlikely this development will ease the dire situation of its population: nearly 20,000 Greeks are homeless and 21 percent are unemployed. Stateside, there were signs of recovery when on Tuesday the Dow hit 13,000 for the first time since 2008. But if the last four years have proved nothing else, it's that what happens across the globe can directly impact a market at home.

Joe Nocera is op-Ed columnist for our partner The New York Times.

At present, there are nearly 7,000 languages being spoken worldwide. However, due to ageing populations and globalization's English-only emphasis, a language dies out every 14 days. At this rate, nearly half the world's languages will vanish in 100 years. Very often, these languages are lost without any record: no clues about pronunciation, let alone grammar or vocabulary. 

Now, new digital speaking dictionaries may be the key to saving thousands of languages from extinction. The Living Tongues project presented eight new dictionaries at a conference last week.

Margaret Noori is director of the comprehensive studies program and lecturer in the Native American Studies Program at the University of Michigan. 

Gregory D. S. Anderson is director of Living Tongues, which unveiled eight dictionaries of languages that are currently facing extinction last week.

American journalist Marie Colvin has reportedly been killed in Syria along with Rémi Ochlik of France. Colvin wore a black eye patch after she lost an eye to shrapnel while reporting from Sri Lanka in 2001. But that didn't stop from venturing back into Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, to cover the uprising of the Arab people. That's what eventually took her to Homs in Syria, where she lost her life. Yesterday, she filed her last dispatch from the embattled city.

A native of Oyster Bay, New York and graduate of Yale, for more than 30 years Colvin willingly entered where other reporters feared to tread. She said she was often the only journalist in the battle-torn areas that she covered.

Joining the program is Ian Black, Middle East editor for The UK Guardian in London.

Xavier Alvarez has lied about playing for the Detroit Red Wings, being secretly married to a Mexican actress, getting wounded multiple times during combat as a Marine, and receiving the Medal of Honor. For many, this list of tall tales may seem laughable. However, under the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, his lies about his military record could land him in jail for a year. On Wednesday the Supreme Court is set to hear his case and determine whether or not Americans should be imprisoned for things they say rather than actions they commit.

Pam Sterner went back to school in her early 40s at Colorado State University. In a political science course, she wrote a paper "Stolen Valor" that grew out of her husband's frustrations over phony award claimants whose worst punishment was public embarrassment, and eventually led to the Stolen Valor Act of 2005.

Jonathan Turley is a legal scholar who says the Stolen Valor Act of 2006 poses First Amendment issues.

It's no secret that Google and Facebook are tracking and selling their users' information for marketing purposes. However, it may come as a surprise that campaigns have been successfully using microtargeting since 2004 to change election outcomes. Political parties extract data from internet users, then sort them into smaller and smaller segments based on demographic and browsing histories, targeting messages that directly relate to what they've been doing online. These segments are so precise that people within the same household will get different ads.

Here to discuss the rise of micro-targeting in the world of political marketing is Colin Delany. Delany is the founder and chief editor of Epolitics.com, a site that focuses on the tools and tactics of Internet politics and online political advocacy.

In Afghanistan this morning more than 1,000 protesters are gathering to protest the burning of Korans and Islamic holy books at the Bagram military base. This has triggered a second day of anti-American demonstrations. Crowds clashed with security forces furious about the way Islamic holy books at the base were destroyed.

Ambassador Peter Galbraith is former United Nations deputy special representative to Afghanistan.

The White House is rolling out an ambitious plan to overhaul the corporate tax code. President Obama wants to cut the corporate tax rate down to 28 percent from 35 percent. However, the new rule would close loopholes and popular eliminate subsidies currently enjoyed by American corporations. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will unveil the plan later today.

An American is one of two journalists killed in Syria this morning as security forces lay siege to the city of Homs. Reporter Marie Colvin with Britain's Sunday Times and her photographer Remy Ochlik were killed. The Reuters news agency reports the two were inside a house hit by shelling and rockets.

Supreme Court to Rule on Lying; New Initiative Preserves Rare and Endangered Languages; The Advent of Micro-Targeted Political Ads;Ahead of Debate, Arizona Voters Confess Concerns; A Look at the Markets at Home and Abroad; 'Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory': Some Closure for the West Memphis Three; Journalist Marie Colvin Killed in Homs, Syria

In recent years cross-voting, the practice of supporting or voting for an opposing party's second-best interest, has become increasingly popular. For example, in 2008 Rush Limbaugh hoped to dilute some of Barack Obama's momentum by founding "Operation Chaos" which encouraged conservatives to vote for Hillary Clinton. And now with Michigan's open primary, the Daily Kos is calling for Michigan Democrats to vote for Rick Santorum in order to make things difficult for Mitt Romney.

Rob Richie works at Fair Vote, a nonpartisan research advocacy organization promoting fair elections. Patricia Lesko is a Michigan Democrat who will not be participating in the open primary .

Over the past two weeks, the "Linsanity" of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin has swept across New York, and much of America. Breaking records for scoring and assisting in his first five games, many sports fans are celebrating. Meanwhile, many are wondering when was the last time a black athlete ignited the same type of passion.

William Rhoden is a sports columnist for our partner The New York Times.

After 11 months of bloody internal strife, the situation in Syria does not seem to be changing. On Monday, tanks and troops gathered en mass outside the resistance stronghold of Homs, possibly planning for another round of urban combat. Meanwhile, the Red Cross tried to broker a humanitarian cease-fire to allow for much needed emergency aid to get in, and Senator John McCain has urged the U.S. and its allies to arm and equip Syrian rebels. 

Jon Lee Anderson is correspondent for the New Yorker and one of the few journalists allowed in the country.

In Anonymous's move away from denial of service attacks and toward real-world interactions — such as recent threats against the Los Zetas Cartel — the hacktivists have attracted the attention of the National Security Agency. In private meetings at the White House, NSA director General Keith Alexander warned that in a year or two the group could attack the energy grid and shut off power for millions. 

Siobhan Gorman is an intelligence correspondent for the Wall Street Journal.

After 22 years of mutual isolation and hostility, it was the trip that transformed the world. From February 21-28, 1972, U.S. president Richard Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, and traveled through Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai. In addition to formally normalizing relations between the U.S. and P.R.C., it was the first time the U.S. public had seen images of China since the communists took power. 

Winston Lord was Henry Kissinger’s closest aide, accompanying him and President Nixon to all the "China opening" meetings. He joins the program to discuss the trip and its impact.

On April 5, 2010, WikiLeaks released a video called "Collateral Murder." The video presented an editorialized account of what has become one of the most infamous and controversial events in the war in Iraq: on July 12, 2007, two U.S. Army helicopters opened fire on a group of men in in the district of New Baghdad. Eight were killed, including two Reuters reporters; most were unarmed.

The Oscar-nominated documentary short "Incident in New Baghdad" recounts this event through the perspective of Ethan McCord, a former army specialist who can be seen in the video trying to save two children who have been injured by the gunfire. He has since become an anti-war activist.

McCord joins The Takeaway to discuss his experiences, and Jim Spione, the director of the documentary, talks about his film and the history behind it.

How much will it cost Europe to keep Greece out of bankruptcy? $172 billion, that's how much. EU finance members gave approval to a second bailout package in Brussels overnight but Athens has to accept deep spending cuts and permanent monitoring. The chairman of the Euro group says the deal would secure Greece's future in the euro zone, but required the efforts of all parts of Greek society.

Constantine Michalos is the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 

Iran is warning it will take preemptive action against perceived enemies if it feels its national interests are threatened. The warning comes as the country bars a team of UN weapons inspectors from nuclear facilities. A spokesman for the country's foreign ministry says the group from the International Atomic Energy Agency will hold talks with Iran, but nothing more.

The people of Yemen will go to the polls today to elect a new president. The elections come after a year of violent street protests to get rid of President Ali Saleh. Yemen is now thought to be the biggest base for Islamic militants in the world. Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, the BBC's Middle East correspondent has been to Yemen to file this report.

Has Greece been saved for good? Euro zone leaders have agreed to a second bailout to save Greece from bankruptcy but Athens has to accept deep spending cuts and permanent monitoring. This has caused many Greeks to revolt. Joining The Takeaway is Steve Evans, correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Finance ministers from the Eurozone have approved a second bailout to save Greece from bankruptcy. After 13 hours of negotiations mostly hinging on how much of Greece's debt will be reduced EU leaders agreed to a massive $172 billion bailout package. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christina Lagarde, says the deal allows Greece to get a hold of its finances.

Throwing a Wrench into the Michigan Primary Machine; NSA Declares 'Anonymous' a Threat to National Security; An Update on Syria; Race and Religion's Role in Making a Sports Hero; Electoral Demographics and a History of Presidential Primaries; 40th Anniversary of Nixon's Visit to China; NYPD Surveillance Program Monitored Muslim Students at 13 Colleges; 'Incident in New Baghdad': The Effects of War on a Soldier with a New Documentary; Detail on the Euro Zone Bailout of Greece; Race and the Story of Basketball Sensation Jeremy Lin

Despite growing up in Detroit — and Rick Santorum's anti-bailout speech to the Detroit Economic club — the most recent polls from Michigan have Mitt Romney trailing Santorum by an average of six points. Romney has tried to curb Santorum's upswell by outspending him three to one in advertising. Given the indecisiveness of the race thus far, whether or not Romney takes Michigan could be a turning point in the nomination.

Quinn Klinefelter, senior news editor at WDET in Detroit, gives us the latest from the state of Michigan.

On Monday, ground will be broken on the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This $500 million project is just one of the many being erected in major cities dedicated to African American history and the civil rights movement: Atlanta, Jackson and Charleston all have projects in the works. These projects mark an emerging era of scholarship and interest in the history of the civil rights movement, providing the public with new insights.

Doug Shipman is CEO of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

In 2009, filmmaker Danfung Dennis was embedded with U.S. Marines "Echo Company" as the marines launched a major offensive on the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province in Afghanistan. Danfung worked closely with Sergeant Nathan Harris, one of the Marines leading the charge. When Danfung returned to U.S. a few months later, he discovered that Sergeant. Harris had been gravely injured, just two weeks before his battalion was scheduled to return home. The story of Sergeant Harris’s recovery is now the focus of Danfung Dennis’s newest documentary, "Hell and Back Again."

This film is nominated for a 2012 Best Documentary Oscar. In anticipation of the Academy Awards on Sunday, Danfung Dennis and Sergeant Nathan Harris join us to discuss the film. 

"Hell and Back Again" Trailer:

Mitt Romney has had a hard time garnering support among social conservatives. But since he's a minister in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, you'd think that unanimous support among Mormons would be a given. That's not the case in Arizona, where strict adherence to Mormon teachings have led some to adopt libertarian views — and support Ron Paul.

Peter O'Dowd is news director at KJZZ in Phoenix, Arizona. He gives us a run-down of the issues that are important to Arizona Republicans.

While e-books are extremely convenient for readers, their proliferation is causing more financial problems for the already beleaguered publishing industry. A growing number of people with e-readers want to borrow e-books from their local libraries. But publishers, selling the electronic manuscripts at record highs, are wary of letting libraries loan them out. 

Sean Corcoran is senior reporter for WCAI and our partner station, WGBH. Jill Erickson is a librarian at the Falmouth Public Library in Falmouth, MA.

People go to great lengths to fabricate military service. For every real Navy SEAL the FBI estimates there are hundreds of impostors. Xavier Alvarez, for example is an impostor. Alvarez, once a member of a California water-district board, lied at a public meeting about being a war hero specifically that he was awarded the Medal of Honor. But his lies did more than make him an outcast. They made him a criminal.  

Jeffrey Rosen, is professor of law at George Washington University. Doug Sterner is the curator for the Military Times Hall of Valor.

The NBA season is on full throttle as the New York Knicks played the champion Dallas Mavericks Sunday afternoon and Jeremy Lin was able to hold off the team and the Knicks cruised to yet another win. There were also exciting games around the league as Kevin Durant scored a stunning 51 points for Oklahoma City. The question for Linsanity remains: how long can it last?

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin is Takeaway sports contributor.

Euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels appear ready to approve a second bailout package for Greece. Nearly $172 billion will be funneled to the country in exchange for more austerity measures, like a 22 percent cut in the minimum wage. Greek leaders approved the deal last week in a last-ditch effort to avoid bankruptcy.

Iran has been causing trouble in the region as Tehran cut off crude exports to Europe. United Nations nuclear inspectors are back in the country this morning for the second time in a month. This time they are seeking more talks about the country's nuclear program. Yesterday, Iran signaled that it was ready to hit back hard at sanctions threatening its economy by announcing it was halting its limited oil sales to France and Britain. James Reynolds is correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Throwing a challenge to President Obama, Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have laid out a series of diplomatic, humanitarian, and military aid proposals in support of an effort to topple President Bashar al-Assad. One of their options calls for arming the Syrian rebel forces. Some say this is unlikely for an administration that wants to avoid another war during an election season. 

Despite Romney's Homecourt Advantage, Santorum Winning in Michigan; Library Access to E-books Worries Publishers; The Agenda: Gas Prices, GOP Campaigning, Occupy Our Prisons; The Civil Rights Movement Comes of Age; Some Arizona Mormons Don't Support Romney; 60 Lives Connected in the Largest Chain of Kidney Transplants; 'Hell and Back Again': Fighting in Afghanistan, Recovering in North Carolina

This week our Movie Date podcasters talk about the most unlikely movie story of the year: Jeremy Lin and his rapid rise to stardom in the NBA. As a script, the Jeremy Lin story is perfect. Beyond breaking down the aspects of the Lin story, our team looks at the most lin-spired movies. What movies remind you of the Jeremy Lin story? As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway.

"Safe House" is the new Denzel Washington flick which treads some familiar territory. There are explosions, there are also buddy cop dynamics, sexy girlfriends, and lots and lots of action.  As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway. They'll tell you if this movie is a good date, and if the action-packed sequences are too much, too often, or just right.

It's been a big week for advocates of gay marriage: legislation in its favor passed both New Jersey's Assembly and Maryland's Senate. However, this isn't the first time Maryland lawmakers have debated this issue. Last year a similar bill died after being passed by the state senate. The bill's failure was largely attributable to black representatives who were hesitant to back an issue so strongly opposed by the state's black clergy. Governor Martin O'Malley has voiced his support, and now so has Reverend Delman Coates, pastor of a 6,000 strong black church.

Reverend Delman Coates is a pastor at Mt. Ennon Baptist Church, located in Prince George's County, Maryland, where skepticism about gay marriage is high. He talks to us about his evolution of thought on this issue.

The religious freedom restoration act of 2012 is the latest wrinkle in a debate over contraceptive use in America. Last month, President Obama announced a mandate that would require faith-based employers to cover contraceptive care. Women's rights advocates have supported this measure, but members of the clergy and republicans in Congress have rallied against it in the name of religious freedom. The Takeaway asked listeners where they fell in the argument.

Steve Chabot is a Republican congressman from Ohio and is sponsoring the "Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2012," which would reverse the Obama administration's mandate.

This morning we are heartbroken to report that Anthony Shadid of our partner The New York Times is no longer one of the survivors. The veteran Middle East correspondent for The Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe and long time voice on this program has died. A fatal asthma attack while he was reporting in chaotic Syria, working undercover. His body carried across the Syrian border and home by a colleague yesterday.

Bill Keller is the former executive editor of The New York Times.

Transportation bills usually get a free ride through Congress — they create jobs and maintain the country's infrastructure. But the recent House five-year, $260 transportation bill would be funded by new drilling projects, and reigniting partisan divides between the two parties. What is the future of a comprehensive approach on transportation? President Obama's secretary of transportation joins us for a discussion.

Ray LaHood is the United States secretary of transportation.

In 1958, Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in their own home, in the middle of the night, for the crime of miscegenation. When the Supreme Court declared miscegenation laws illegal in 1967, 16 states still had such laws on the books. A new poll released this week by the Pew Research Center shows just how far we’ve come in the five decades since the Lovings’ arrest. 15 percent of new marriages in 2010 crossed racial or ethnic lines, double the rate from 1980. And a great majority of Americans say they would readily accept an interracial marriage in their family.

Renee Romano is professor of history at Oberlin College and author of "Race Mixing: Black-White Marriage in Postwar America."

The U.N. General Assembly has voted to approve a measure condemning human rights violations and backing an Arab League plan to stop the killings in Syria. The resolution also calls on President Bashar Assad to resign. Syria's ambassador, Bashar Ja'afari, speaking through a UN interpreter, tried to forestall those results.

The Jeremy Lin story only gets more amazing this week, as the most unlikely sports hero of the past decade. Also this week, the tragedy of Whitney Houston. Michigan becomes the next battleground in the GOP primary. We look back at this week's stories with our panel. Ron Christie is a Takeaway contributor and Republican political strategist. Jeff Yang writes the Tao Jones column for The Wall Street Journal and blogs for our co-producer WNYC's It's a Free Country. Farai Chideya is a journalist and blogger at Farai.com.

Charlie Chaplin's contributions to the eighth art are indisputable. His most famous character, The Tramp, entertained millions and has influenced both "serious" actors and physical comedians for almost 100 years. But it doesn't take a film scholar to see that many of Chaplin's films contain pro-socialist messages, especially in those that he directed. In 1952 during the House Committee on Un-American Activities's second series of investigations, Chaplin was denied re-entry to the U.S. Chaplin lived the rest of his life in Europe, and obtained a knighthood in 1975 — despite a great deal of pressure from the F.B.I.

Gordon Correra is security correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Historian Robert Kagan holds the distinction of influencing both Mitt Romney and President Obama's political discourse. A foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, Kagan's ideas were also evident in President Obama’s state of the union address, which disputes the claim that America is in decline.  

Robert Kagan is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the new book "The World America Made."

This morning we are heartbroken to report that Anthony Shadid of our partner The New York Times is no longer one of the survivors. The veteran Middle East correspondent for The Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe and long time voice on this program has died. A fatal asthma attack while he was reporting in chaotic Syria, working undercover. His body carried across the Syrian border and home by a colleague yesterday.

Borzou Daragahi, Middle East and North Africa correspondent for The Financial Times, joins us to remember our colleague Anthony Shadid.

Anthony Shadid, Mideast correspondent for our partner the New York Times, has died while on assignment inside Syria. The two-time Pulitzer Prize winner died from an apparent asthma attack triggered by an allergic reaction. His reporting has been a fixture on The Takeaway like this last February from Cairo when he told us the mood had become more aggressive as pro-Mubarak demonstrators surrounded Tahrir Square.

As Tensions with Iran Rise, So Do Oil Prices; Prominent Black Reverend Supports Maryland's Gay Marriage Bill; The History and Future of America's Global Influence; Follow Friday; New Study Shows Growing Rate and Acceptance of Interracial Marriage; House Deadlocked Over Transportation Bill; Listeners Respond: Birth Control Mandate; Tea Party Redux; Bill Keller on the Death of Anthony Shadid

Daniel Radcliffe's post-Harry Potter career hasn't been the magical sensation of his wizardry past. But that may be about to change. In this horror film based on the novel of the same title, Arthur Kipps (played by Radcliffe) faces the haunting prospect of a ghostly woman returning to exact her revenge on the town's children. Can Radcliffe break the Harry Potter mold with 'The Woman in Black'? As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway.

Three way talks between the U.S. the Afghan government and the Taliban are reportedly underway. It's a significant development that suggests the Taliban were dropping longstanding objections to face-to-face discussions with the Afghan government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed the talks to The Wall Street Journal and we're joined now by Yaroslav Trofimov the Afghanistan editor at The Wall Street Journal.

Since its founding, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has grappled with how to balance personal liberty and national security. The bureau grew exponentially in the years following World War I, as the country became increasingly terrified by the communist threat. The fear of communism often served as a guide for J. Edgar Hoover, the man who built the FBI and ran the Bureau for more than 40 years.

Tim Weiner's book, "Enemies: A History of the FBI," investigates 70,000 pages of recently-declassified documents to understand just how far the man who engeineered the FBI thwarted civil liberties in the name of national security.

A deadly fire ripped through a prison in Honduras this week. The incident has left families despondent and confused about the cause. Some blame it on a prison riot, others say an inmate set a mattress on fire. How the government responds and who takes responsibility is the next question. This report comes from out partner the BBC.

With the Michigan primary almost two weeks away, Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are waging war against each other through televised attacks ads. On Wednesday, Rick Santorum responded to a Super PAC funded Romney ad that claimed he was a "big spender" by depicting Romney as "Rombo." A Mitt Romney look-a-like, "Rombo," is seen shooting mud with a machine gun at cardboard pop-ups of Rick Santorum.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, explains the effectiveness of such ads and the truthfulness behind them. She is also director of Flackcheck.org.

President Obama began his 2012 presidential campaign last month with a stop at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where he addressed young, swing-state voters about the need for affordable higher education in the coming decades. The question that remains is how can public universities keep tuition costs down in a depressed economy. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology might have an answer. This spring, MIT announced the launch of MITx, an online learning platform that offers MIT classes for free.

Rafael Reif is the current Provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is leading MIT’s online learning initiatives. 

Amnesty International is warning that armed militias are threatening both the security and stability of Libya. A new report from the human rights group says at least a dozen detainees have died under torture. Mahmoud Shammam is a former Information Minister for the National Transitional Government, or NTC. He told our partner the BBC that he doesn't believe there is widespread abuse of human rights across Libya.

If there's one thing that Republicans and Democrats traditionally agree on it's transportation legislation. Yet this is not the case for two different transportation bills that are stalled in the House and Senate. Tea Party conservatives are complaining about the cost, even thought traditional GOP members want to create jobs. Some think the problem is lack of earmarks, which bring "pork" to certain districts.

Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington correspondent and contributor for Transportation Nation, discusses why these bills are stuck in the driveway.

Nearly 4.5 million people in the United States have developmental disabilities, and more so than ever, these individuals are living longer lives. With a death of a parent, siblings often take over as the primary caregivers for those with mental disabilities. The HBO documentary, "Raising Renee" follows the journey of Beverly McIver, an artist who is put to the test in raising her sister who is mentally disabled. 

Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan are the husband-and-wife team and directors of the documentary “Raising Renee.” Beverly McIver is an artist and the subject of the documentary.

Since Obama announced his birth control mandate that requires faith-based employers to pay for contraceptive coverage, church officials have waged against the controversial bill. Last Friday, President Obama put forth a compromise that would allow churches and their religious employees to shift the cost of birth control to their insurance companies. Pastor Bob Stec and James Salt discuss the debate within the religious community over the federal ruling.

Father Bob Stec is the pastor of St. Ambrose Church in Brunswick, Ohio. James Salt is the executive director of Catholics United. 

The House and Senate could vote tomorrow on the $ 150 billion payroll tax cut extension after Congressional negotiators put the final touches on the deal late last night. Or, to be strictly accurate, a deal reached early this morning: Todd Zwillich Takeaway's Washington correspondent, tells us about the deal.

On Wednesday, Iran claimed to have made advances in the master production of nuclear fuel despite increasingly tough sanctions by the West over its controversial nuclear program. This week Iran has also been in the headlines for a series of attacks in Thailand, India and Georgia. Furthermore, relations between Israel and Iran are increasingly strained with threats of aggression coming from both sides. Is there still hope for diplomacy between Iran and Western governments?

Stephen Kinzer is a journalist and the professor of international relations at Boston University.

Kelly Niknejad is the editor-in-chief of Tehran Bureau, an online news source on Iran and the Iranian diaspora.

FBI Purges Hundreds of Islamophobic Training Documents; Congress Stalls on Transportation Bills; Siblings as Primary Caregivers: A Sisters' Story; Iran: Hope for Diplomacy?; Republicans Duke It Out with Attack Ads; Is the Future of Higher Education Online?; Homeowner's Take on Losing Insurance Due to Seasonal Hurricanes; The Secret History of FBI Counterintelligence

Excerpted from ENEMIES by Tim Weiner Copyright © 2012 by Tim Weiner. Excerpted by permission of Random House, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

45: "If We Don't Do This, People Will Die"

On the day after Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt gave J. Edgar Hoover the power to monitor all telecommunications traffic in and out of the United States. Three weeks after 9/11, President Bush handed Robert Mueller an authority almost as strong. For twenty-nine months following Bush’s order, the FBI had tracked thousands of telephones and Internet addresses in the United States under the aegis of the National Security Agency. 

"Every day," as Mueller said, the Bureau investigated "e-mail threats from all around the world saying that this particular terrorist activity is going to occur in the United States." The task of "neutralizing al Qaeda operatives that have already entered the U.S. and have established themselves in American society is one of our most serious intelligence and law enforcement challenges,” Mueller told a closed-door meeting of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on February 24, 2004. Now the director faced a task as daunting. He had to defy the president and the vice president of the United States, confront them in a showdown over secrecy and democracy, and challenge them in the name of the law.

At least three separate global eavesdropping programs had been mining and assaying the electronic ether under the rubric of Stellar Wind. At least two of them violated the Constitution’s protections against warrantless searches and seizures. Mueller saw no evidence that the surveillances had saved a life, stopped an imminent attack, or discovered an al-Qaeda member in the United States. The number of people who knew the facts was exceedingly small, but it was growing. A handful of Justice Department lawyers and intelligence court judges thought the programs were unconstitutional and their power had to be controlled. They convinced James Comey, the newly appointed number- two man at the Justice Department. And Comey soon won a convert in Robert Mueller. 

On March 4, Mueller and Comey agreed that the FBI could not continue to go along with the surveillance programs. The scope of the searches had to be altered to protect the rights of Americans. They thought Attorney General Ashcroft could not re- endorse Stellar Wind as it stood. Comey made his case to his boss in an hour- long argument at the Justice Department that day, and Ashcroft concurred. Comey was a persuasive advocate. One of the FBI’s favorite prosecutors, the grandson of an Irish police commissioner, he had worked with skill and intensity on terrorism cases as the United States attorney in Manhattan for two years after the al-Qaeda attacks. The trust vested in him that day showed that the awe- inspiring force of American national security rested on personal relationships as well as statutory powers.

That night, hours after Comey won him over, Ashcroft suffered a wave of excruciating nausea and pain. Doctors diagnosed a potentially fatal case of gallstone pancreatitis. He was sedated and scheduled for surgery. With Ashcroft incapacitated, Comey was the acting attorney general and chief law enforcement officer of the United States.

Stellar Wind had to be reauthorized on March 11. Seven days of struggle lay ahead, a tug-of-war between security and liberty. Mueller was “a great help to me over that week,” Comey said.

The FBI director met Vice President Cheney at the White House at noon on March 9. They stared at one another across the table in the corner offi ce of the president’s chief of staff, Andrew Card. Cheney was adamant: no one had the right to challenge the president’s power. The spying would continue at his command. It would go on with or without the Justice Department’s approval.

"I could have a problem with that," Mueller replied. His notes of the meeting say that he told the vice president that the FBI had to "review legality of continued participation in the program."

On March 10, President Bush ordered Card and the White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to go to the intensive care unit at George Washington University Hospital, one mile northwest of the White House, and to get Ashcroft’s signature. An FBI security detail guarded Ashcroft’s room. He had come out of surgery the day before. He was in no condition to receiveguests, much less sign secret presidential orders. The president called the hospital at 6:45 p.m. and insisted on talking to Ashcroft. His wife took the call.

The president told her that it was a matter of national security. She would not hand over the phone. The FBI agents had the presence of mind to alert Ashcroft’s chief of staff that the president’s men were on their way. He called Comey. The acting attorney general called Mueller, asking him to meet him at the hospital and bear witness to the confrontation.

They raced to the intensive care unit. Comey got there fi rst. He walkedinto the darkened room and saw that Ashcroft was fading: “I immediatelybegan speaking to him . . . and tried to see if he could focus on what was happening. And it wasn’t clear to me that he could. He seemed pretty bad off.” Comey stepped out into the hallway and called Mueller again. Thedirector said he would be there in a few minutes. He wanted to speak withhis agents. He ordered them to make sure that the president’s men did not throw the acting attorney general out of the hospital room.

The FBI agents recorded that Card and Gonzales entered at 7:35 p.m. Gonzales stood at the head of the bed holding a manila envelope with the presidential authorization inside. He told Ashcroft he wanted his signature. Ashcroft lifted his head off his pillow. He refused. “In very strong terms,” he said the program was illegal; his argument was “rich in both substanceand fact—which stunned me,” Comey said. Then Ashcroft laid down hishead and said: “But that doesn’t matter, because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.” And then he pointed at Comey.

Mueller crossed paths with the president’s empty-handed emissaries as they stalked out. They were about to cross swords.

The president signed the authorization alone in the White House on the morning of March 11. It explicitly asserted that his powers as commander in chief overrode all other laws of the land. Mueller met with White House chief of staff Card at noon. His notes say that he told Card that “the WH was trying to do an end run” around the law.

Mueller drafted a letter of resignation by hand at 1:30 a.m. on March 12, 2004. “In the absence of clarifi cation of the legality of the program from the Attorney General,” he wrote, “I am forced to withdraw the FBI from participation in the program. Further, should the President order the continuation of the FBI’s participation in the program, and in the absence of further legal advice from the AG, I would be constrained to resign as Director of the FBI.”

Seven hours later, Mueller went to the morning briefi ng with the president at the White House. It had been a busy night in the world of counterterrorism. In Madrid, Islamic jihadists claiming inspiration from al- Qaeda had set off ten bombs in four commuter trains. They killed 191 people and wounded 1,800, the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie in 1988. The FBI was looking for links to the United States.

After the meeting, the president stood alone with Mueller in the Oval Office. Bush now realized that the FBI director, the attorney general, and his deputy were in rebellion. Mueller told Bush face-to-face that he would resign if the FBI was ordered to continue warrantless searches on Americans without an order from the Department of Justice. Mueller said he had an “independent obligation to the FBI and to DOJ to assure the legality of actions we undertook,” according to his recently declassified notes of the meeting. “A presidential order alone could not do that.”

Both men had sworn upon taking office to faithfully execute the laws of the United States. Only one still held to his oath.

The president pleaded ignorance of the law and the facts. He said he hadn’t known there had been legal problems with Stellar Wind. He said he hadn’t known Ashcroft had been in the hospital. He said he hadn’t known Mueller and Comey had been blowing the whistle. He was almost surely deceiving the director, and deliberately.

Without doubt he saw a political disaster at hand. “I had to make a big decision, and fast,” Bush wrote in his memoirs. “I thought about the Saturday Night Massacre in October 1973”—when Nixon defied the Justice Department over his secret tapes, forced the attorney general and his deputy to resign, and destroyed his presidential aura of power. “That was not a historical crisis I was eager to replicate. It wouldn’t give me much satisfaction to know I was right on the legal principles while my administration imploded and our key programs in the war on terror were exposed in the media.”

Bush promised to put the programs on a legal footing. This did not happen overnight. It took years. But based on the president’s promise, Mueller and his allies backed down from their threats to resign. Bush kept the secret for twenty more months. The man who first blew the whistle on the warrantless surveillance was a Justice Department lawyer named Thomas Tamm; his father and his uncle had been two of J. Edgar Hoover’s closest aides at headquarters. By the time the first facts were revealed in The New York Times, both Ashcroft and Comey had resigned from the Bush administration.

Mueller’s stand against the president stayed secret far longer. But Comey told a select audience at the National Security Agency what Mueller had heard from Bush and Cheney at the White House:

"If we don’t do this, people will die.” You can all supply your own this: “If we don’t collect this type of information,” or “If we don’t use this technique,” or “If we don’t extend this authority.” It is extraordinarily diffi cult to be the attorney standing in front of the freight train that is the need for this . . .It takes far more than a sharp legal mind to say “no” when it matters most. It takes moral character. It takes an ability to see the future. It takes an appreciation of the damage that will fl ow from an unjustifi ed “yes.” It takes an understanding that, in the long run, intelligence under law is the only sustainable intelligence in this country.

Mueller testified in public before the 9/11 Commission one month later, on April 14, 2004, and he never breathed a word of what had happened at the White House. He never has.

"The Beginnings of an Intelligence Service"

The commission and Congress accepted the director’s assurance that the FBI could safeguard both liberty and security. But they asked more from Mueller. They wanted to know that the FBI was using the full powers Congress had granted it under the Patriot Act of 2001.

It was, but not always well. On May 6, 2004, the FBI arrested an Oregon attorney, Brandon Mayfi eld, on a material witness warrant in connection with the Madrid bombings. He was an American citizen who had converted to Islam. The FBI had used every wiretapping and surveillance tool it had against Mayfi eld for seven weeks. The case rested on the FBI’s misreading of a fingerprint lifted from a plastic bag in Madrid. Spanish police had told the FBI legal attaché in Madrid that Mayfield was the wrong man. He was nonetheless arrested after that warning. The arrest led to two weeks ofharsh imprisonment in solitary confi nement before he was freed; he laterwon a formal apology and a $2 million settlement from the government.

The Patriot Act, written swiftly, in a state of fear, had greatly expanded the force of national security letters, a tactic rarely used before 9/11. The letters commanded banks, credit bureaus, telephone companies, and Internet service providers to turn over records about their customers to the FBI. They also compelled the recipients to remain silent—they could tell no one, not even a lawyer. They had the combined power of a subpoena and agag order. The FBI was sending out close to one thousand of these letters aweek; more than half the targets were American citizens. FBI agents said they were indispensable investigative tools, the bread and butter of counterterrorismin the United States. But the letters, like warrantless wiretaps, were also a form of breaking and entering. An FBI supervisor could writethem without a judge’s order or a prosecutor’s request.

By September 2004, federal judges were starting to find them unconstitutional. The courts struck down the provisions of the Patriot Act that gave the FBI those powers; Congress rewrote the law to preserve them. The Bureau now had to justify the gag order to a judge, but the letters continued.

The FBI’s counterterrorism agents also were abusing their power by creating “exigent letters” — emergency subpoenas for thousands of telephone records— without telling anyone at headquarters. An endless succession of assistant directors, deputies, and special agents in charge did not learn the rules or their roles. Mueller said: “We did not have a management system in place to assure that we were following the law.” He conceded that the Bureau had misused the Patriot Act to obtain intelligence.

The testimony that the 9/11 Commission heard left many of the commissioners thinking that the Bureau should be rebuilt. They seriously considered creating a new domestic intelligence service to supplant the FBI. Mueller fought a three- front battle with the commission, the Congress, and the White House to keep the Bureau from becoming a house divided, with law enforcement on one side and intelligence on the other. The struggle went on every day through the summer and fall of 2004, and into the next year.

The only part of the commission’s report on the FBI that was written into law was an order commanding the creation of “an institutional culture with substantial expertise in, and commitment to, the intelligence mission.” Mueller had been trying to do that for years. His progress was slow and uneven, but he soon achieved his goal of doubling the number of intelligence analysts at the FBI. There were now two thousand of them, and they were no longer assigned to answer phones and empty the trash.

Mueller had confidently reported to the commission that he was making great strides, “turning to the next stage of transforming the Bureau into an intelligence agency.” But the FBI was at least five years away from that goal.

The president had been compelled to create his own intelligence commission after conceding that the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were a mirage. Federal appeals court judge Laurence Silberman led it. He was Cheney’s choice; the two were of one mind about the Bureau. They had been for thirty years, ever since Silberman was deputy attorney general and Cheney President Ford’s chief of staff. Back then, after Nixon fell, the White House had sent Silberman to search the secret files of J. Edgar Hoover. The judge had had a barb out for the Bureau ever since.

“It was the single worst experience of my long governmental service,” Judge Silberman told his fellow judges. “Hoover had indeed tasked his agents with reporting privately to him any bits of dirt on fi gures such as Martin Luther King, or their families. Hoover sometimes used that information for subtle blackmail to ensure his and the Bureau’s power . . . I think it would be appropriate to introduce all new recruits to the nature of the secret and confi dential fi les of J. Edgar Hoover. And in that connection this country— and the Bureau—would be well served if his name were removed from the Bureau’s building.”

Silberman’s report on the FBI, in the works throughout the winter of 2004 and sent to the White House on March 31, 2005, was a steel- wire scrubbing. “It has now been three and a half years since the September 11 attacks,” the report’s chapter on the Bureau began. “Three and a half years after December 7, 1941, the United States had built and equipped an army and a navy that had crossed two oceans, the En glish Channel, and the Rhine; it had already won Germany’s surrender and was two months from vanquishing Japan. The FBI has spent the past three and a half years building the beginnings of an intelligence service.” The report warned that it would take until 2010 to accomplish that task.

The report bore down hard on the FBI’s intelligence directorate, created by Mueller two years before. It concluded that the directorate had great responsibility but no authority. It did not run intelligence investigations or operations. It performed no analysis. It had little sway over the fifty-six field groups it had created. No one but the director himself had power over any of these fiefs.

“We asked whether the Directorate of Intelligence can ensure that intelligence collection priorities are met,” the report said. “It cannot. We asked whether the directorate directly supervises most of the Bureau’s analysts. It does not.” It did not control the money or the people over whom it appeared to preside. “Can the FBI’s latest effort to build an intelligence capability overcome the resistance that has scuppered past reforms?” the report asked. “The outcome is still in doubt.” These were harsh judgments, all the more stinging because they were true. If the FBI could not command and control its agents and its authorities, the report concluded, the United States should break up the Bureau and start anew, building a new domestic intelligence agency from the ground up.

With gritted teeth, Mueller began to institute the biggest changes in the command structure of the Bureau since Hoover’s death. A single National Security Service within the FBI would now rule over intelligence, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism. The change was imposed effective in September 2005. As the judge had predicted, it would take the better part of five years before it showed results.

"Who Is Calling Shots?"

The war in Iraq was throwing sand into the FBI’s gears. Hundreds of agents had rotated through Iraq, and hundreds more labored at the FBI’s crime lab in Quantico, Virginia, taking part in a battle that seemed to have no end. They analyzed tens of thousands of fi ngerprints and biometric data from prisoners, looking for leads on al- Qaeda. They worked to capture, analyze, and reverse- engineer tens of thousands of fragments of the improvised explosive devices that were killing American soldiers.

Members of the FBI’s vaunted hostage rescue team, trained in commando tactics, were in high demand in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Some had been through four tours of duty in battle, more than any soldier in the war, by the summer of 2005.

The team was now preparing a military assault on a terrorist who had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for more than twenty years.

The Bureau had been after Filiberto Ojeda Ríos ever since the January 1975 bombing of the Fraunces Tavern in New York, one of the fi rst murderous terrorist attacks of the modern age. The Puerto Rican independence movement’s armed forces, the FALN, had taken the credit. The FBI had run COINTELPRO operations against the independence movement throughout the sixties and early seventies; Hoover himself had cited “the increasing boldness” of their political programs and “the courage given to their cause by Castro’s Cuba.”

Ojeda was the FALN’s commander. He had been trained by the Cuban intelligence service from 1961 to 1967, and he had returned to Puerto Rico as a revolutionary. Arrested by an FBI agent in San Juan, he jumped bail and fl ed to New York, where he worked under the protection of Castro’s intelligence offi cers at the Cuban mission to the United Nations. By the start of 1974, Ojeda had organized the FALN in New York and Chicago.

The FBI blamed the group for more than 120 terrorist bombings over the next decade; the attacks had killed a total of six people and done millions of dollars of damage. The Bureau got a lucky break on November 1, 1976, when a heroin addict broke into the FALN’s secret hideout in the Westown section of Chicago, looking for something to steal. He found a cache of dynamite and he tried to sell it on the street. Two days later, on November 3, 1976, the Chicago police and the FBI heard about his offer and got a warrant to search the apartment he had burglarized. They found the fi rst working bomb factory ever discovered in a terrorist investigation in the United States. The safe house held explosives, batteries, propane tanks, watches, and a treasure trove of documents. The investigation led to a series of indictments. The FBI had wounded the FALN, but it did not kill the group.

Ojeda fled again to Puerto Rico, from which he oversaw the assassination of a United States Navy sailor in San Juan in 1982 and directed a $7.1 million Wells Fargo bank robbery in Connecticut in 1983. The FBI believed that half the money went to Cuban intelligence.

A new FBI special agent in charge in San Juan, Luis Fraticelli, had created a fi fteen- member terrorism squad. Tracking down Ojeda was its top priority. Thirty years had passed since the Fraunces Tavern bombing.

During the summer of 2005, the squad determined that the seventytwo- year- old fugitive was living in a small house up a dirt road outside an isolated hamlet on the western edge of Puerto Rico. Fraticelli asked for the hostage rescue team to hunt him down.

FBI headquarters approved the deployment. Ten snipers and a support team landed in Puerto Rico ten days later, on September 23, 2005. There was going to be no negotiation. No member of the team spoke Spanish.

But the plan went awry. A helicopter dropped the hostage rescue force in the wrong location. Their cover was blown quickly. By the time they found Ojeda’s house, a crowd had gathered down the road, chanting “FBI assassins.” Shots were fired— by the FBI and its target— at 4:28 p.m. A standoff ensued. The assault team hunkered down. Rain started falling as night drew near. The FBI’s leaders, monitoring events from headquarters, grew worried.

Willie Hulon— the FBI’s sixth counterterrorism director in four years under Mueller— called his superior, Gary Bald, the FBI’s new national security chief.

“Bald believed that there was confusion regarding who was in command,” an understated after- action report recounted. He wrote in his notes: “Who is calling shots?” The answer was three different FBI chieftains.

In San Juan, the highly stressed special agent in charge wanted an immediate attack. In Quantico, the commander of the hostage rescue team wanted to send in fresh troops. In Washington, Hulon wanted to see a written plan of attack. As midnight approached, Bald told the team to stand down. Its members strongly disagreed. Their commander dispatched a new team from Dulles International Airport at 1:00 a.m. on September 24. They entered the small white house, pierced with 111 bullet holes, shortly after noon. They found Ojeda’s body on the fl oor with a loaded and cocked Browning 9mm handgun by his side. He had been dead since the fi rst exchange of gunfire. No one at headquarters faulted the team that took him down. Ojeda was a terrorist and an assassin, and he had fired on the FBI, wounding one agent, before he died.

But “Who is calling shots?” was a resounding question. Given the continuing inability of the commanders of the FBI and their agents in the fi eld to communicate, it was hard to see who could put them on the same wavelength. The ever- changing leadership of the FBI’s counterterrorism and intelligence chiefs made it harder. Most had cashed out for more rewarding jobs as security directors at credit- card companies, casinos, and cruise lines.

Every morning, Mueller read through the daily threat reports that came out of the new National Counterterrorism Center, up to twenty pages a day of captured e-mails, tips from foreign intelligence services, interviews with informants, and reports about suspicious characters from state and local police. On an average day, the FBI’s in-house threat-tracking system, called Guardian, recorded as many as one hundred alerts. The great majority turned out to be false alarms.

The FBI had to find a way to analyze it all, choose targets for investigations, and turn those investigations into arrests and indictments that would stand up in court and be counted as victories against the enemy. Mueller still needed to make intelligence into a tool for law enforcement. There was a way. Mueller needed a new general and a new strategy.

"This Is on Our Watch"

He found the commander he had been looking for in Philip Mudd, the prematurely gray and deceptively mild- mannered deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. They had testified together for years in classifi ed briefi ngs; Mueller liked the way his new recruit thought and spoke. Mudd was a professional intelligence analyst, a twenty- year veteran of the CIA who had served as the National Security Council’s director for Persian Gulf and Middle East issues and worked in Kabul with the American ambassador in Afghanistan.

Mudd became the chief of the FBI’s National Security Division on April 27, 2006. Though he had been unraveling secrets all his life, he confessed that the FBI mystified him.

“It took me maybe six to twelve months to understand,” he said. “We’re not about collecting intelligence. We’re about looking at a problem and using our combined intelligence and law- enforcement skills to do something about that problem in a way that provides security for Los Angeles or Chicago or Tuscaloosa. This is a profound difference, in my judgment, between the other intelligence challenges I’ve seen over time.

“This is bigger, harder, and it has, in some ways, greater implications for the security of this country,” he said. “This is on our watch. If we don’t get it right, it’s our bad.”

Mueller and Mudd took a hard look at the correlation of forces in the war on terror in the spring and summer of 2006. The Bush administration was flagging. The attempts by the administration to use spies and soldiers to capture and interrogate suspected terrorists were starting to collapse. Torture tainted testimony against the suspects, making their conviction by American juries next to impossible. And the Supreme Court ruled that the president did not have the authority to create war crimes tribunals at Guantánamo.

Bush had fired his CIA director, and he was about to jettison his defense secretary. His attorney general, Alberto Gonzales, the former White House counsel, was widely regarded as a weak reed. Vice President Cheney’s top national security aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, had been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about a CIA leak investigation; he was the highest- ranking White House official convicted of a felony since the Iran-contra imbroglio. The war in Iraq was going badly. Al- Qaeda was still rampant; its methods were metastasizing; the images from Abu Ghraib became a recruiting poster across the world. After the embarrassing exposure of the extralegal aspects of the Stellar Wind eavesdropping program, Congress worked to expand the warrantless wiretapping powers of the government. It eventually legalized parts of the president’s secret surveillance; it made eavesdropping inside America easier. Since much of the world’s telecommunications traffic is routed through the United States, regardless of its origins, the NSA and the FBI could trap an international e-mail stored on a Microsoft server or trace a call switched through an AT&T office without a warrant. Nonetheless, five years of hot pursuit had failed to find a single al-Qaeda suspect in America. Yet the FBI had an ominous sense that they were out there somewhere.

There was another way to smoke them out. What had worked for Hoover against the Ku Klux Klan and the Communist Party of the United States could work for Mueller against the threat of Islamic terrorism. The FBI would seek and arrest potential terrorists with undercover stings. It was a time- honored strategy that criminal investigators understood and intelligence agents savored. It combined secret investigations with the satisfaction of big arrests and blazing headlines. It required two essential elements: a convincing con man as the informant and a credulous suspect as the target. No jury in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Tuscaloosa would accept an argument of entrapment by an accused terrorist handcuffed and shackled by the FBI.

Over the next three years— until the FBI found its first actual al- Qaeda operative in America— the undercover sting became a central strategy of counterterrorism in America. Mueller made it offi cial in a speech on June 23, 2006, announcing the arrests of seven men in a Miami slum who were accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest building in America. Mueller called the men members of a “homegrown terrorist cell . . . self- recruited, self- trained, and self- executing. They may not have any connection to al- Qaeda or to other terrorist groups. They share ideas and information in the shadows of the Internet. They gain inspiration from radical websites that call for violence. They raise money by committing low- level crimes that do not generate much attention. They answer not to a particular leader, but to an ideology. In short, they operate under the radar.” T

he Liberty City Seven, as they were called, were half-bright thugs without the apparent means or the skills to carry out an attack on anything bigger than a liquor store. Their plotting was more aspirational than operational, as the FBI’s deputy director, John Pistole, put it—a phrase that would often be repeated. It took three trials to convict five of the men. But case after case against the homegrown threat followed across the country. An undercover FBI agent in Illinois trailed a twenty-two-year-old thug who traded his stereo speakers for four fake hand grenades; he said he intended to kill shoppers in a mall outside Chicago during Christmas week of 2006. In another investigation, Mueller singled out the work of a former Green Beret in Ohio who had tracked two naturalized Americans from Jordan as they lifted weights, slugged down steroids, and talked about murdering American soldiers in Iraq.

More than half the major cases the FBI brought against accused terrorists from 2007 to 2009 were stings. The Bureau unveiled a spectacular- sounding indictment on May 8, 2007, charging a plot to attack the military base at Fort Dix, New Jersey, with heavy weapons. The ringleaders were three pot- smoking petty criminals in their twenties, all illegal immigrants from Albania, and their brother-in-law, a Palestinian cabdriver. They had taped themselves at a shooting range, shouting “God is great,” and they brought the tape to a video clerk to convert it to a DVD. He called the FBI, which infiltrated the group with an informant, who offered to provide assault rifles and grenades. An even more frightening case emerged on June 3, 2007, when the FBI arrested a sixty-three-year-old suspect, who had once worked at Kennedy Airport in New York, and charged him with leading a plot to blow up aviation fuel tanks and pipelines surrounding the passenger terminals. The informant, a convicted cocaine dealer, recorded his target on tape: “To hit John F. Kennedy, wow,” he said. “They love JFK— like the man. If you hit that, the whole country will be in mourning. It’s like you can kill the man twice.”

A thirty-one-year-old former navy signalman was convicted on March 5, 2008, in a case based in large part upon an e-mail he had sent seven years before. The defendant, born Paul Hall, had changed his name to Hassan Abu-Jihad, a choice that had raised no eyebrows when he joined the navy. While aboard the USS Benfold in the Persian Gulf in April 2001, five months after the bombing of the Cole, he had sent messages to an online jihad forum in London embracing al- Qaeda and disclosing the deployment of ten navy ships to the Gulf. He received a twenty-five-year sentence.

These cases made good stories. The FBI represented them as real- time threats from real-life radicals in the United States. As long as the nation did not suffer an actual attack, most Americans cared little that some of the cases were concoctions, that the FBI sometimes supplied the guns and missiles, that not every e-mail was a fuse for an explosive, or that the plotters might not be homegrown terrorists but garden-variety lunatics.

The FBI had more than seven hundred million terrorism- related records in its files. The list of suspected terrorists it oversaw held more than 1.1 million names. Finding real threats in the deluge of secret intelligence remained a nightmarish task. The Bureau’s third attempt to create a computer network for its agents was fl oundering, costing far more and taking far longer than anyone had feared. It remained a work in progress for years to come; only one-third of the FBI’s agents and analysts were connected to the Internet. Mueller had the authority to hire two dozen senior intelligence offi cers at headquarters. By 2008, he had found only two. Congress continued to flog the FBI’s counterterrorism managers for their failures of foresight and stamina; Mueller had now seen eight of them come and go.

And the FBI’s relentless focus on fighting terrorism had an unforeseen consequence. The investigation and prosecution of white-collar crime plummeted, a boon to the Wall Street plunderings that helped create the greatest economic crisis in America since the 1930s. 

Mueller remained in high repute as the Bush administration came to a close. So did Mudd, who stayed on as the director’s senior intelligence aide. With guidance from the secretary of defense, the former director of central intelligence Robert Gates, they began to develop a global counterterrorism strategy that won favor with both parties in Congress and both candidates running for the White House in the fall of 2008. All three would stay on under the next president. All three would shape his strategies.

"The Purpose that has Always Guided Our Power"

On April 28, 2009, President Barack Obama came to the Hoover Building for a public celebration of the FBI’s hundredth anniversary. A crowd of clerks and secretaries began to assemble in the central courtyard of the Bureau’s concrete fortress. The FBI’s elite, bearing their gold badges, walked out to the courtyard with Obama. The centennial banner, drooping slightly, hung at the back wall.

“Back in 1908, there were just thirty-four special agents reporting to Theodore Roosevelt’s attorney general. Today, there are over 30,000 men and women who work for the FBI,” the president began. “So much has changed in the last one hundred years,” he said, turning on the charm. “Thank God for change.” The crowd went wild.

“I also know that some things have remained constant,” he said, his voice leveling. “The rule of law—that is the foundation on which America was built. That is the purpose that has always guided our power. And that is why we must always reject as false the choice between our security and our ideals.”

Obama had come of age as a champion of civil liberties and constitutional law. In the Oval Office, he took a harder line than he had proclaimed in public. His choices on counterterrorism sometimes shocked his supporters. He decided to hunt and kill al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States carried the fi ght to thousands who adhered to the credo of jihad. Guided by the imperative of preventing the next attack, he went beyond what his predecessors had done to solve the conundrums of counterterrorism. He was the first president since the end of the Cold War to coordinate America’s military and intelligence powers into lethal forces under clear-cut rules.

Under Obama, the CIA and the Pentagon obliterated hundreds of terrorist suspects, and sometimes civilians as well, with a ceaseless barrage of rockets fired by drones over Afghanistan and Pakistan. While American commandos killed Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders, the State Department used muscular diplomacy to win cooperation from many of the nations of Islam, aided by the uprisings of the Arab Spring, led by rebellions against dictators in the name of democracy. To maintain law and order in the war on terror, Obama gave the FBI control over the toughest al-Qaeda captives, the high-value detainees. He entrusted Robert Mueller and his agents with the task of arresting and interrogating terrorists without mangling American laws and liberties.

The FBI was now a part of a growing global network of interwoven national security systems, patched into a web of secret information shared among police and spies throughout America and the world. The Bureau trapped more suspects with more stings, and more sophisticated ones. It sometimes worked at the edge of the law, and arguably beyond, in the surveillance of thousands of Americans who opposed the government with words and thoughts, not deeds or plots. But it also used superior intelligence work to arrest Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant allied with al- Qaeda, and to bring him to a federal court in New York, where he pleaded guilty to plotting to plant a bomb in a subway as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approached. In October 2011, another al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, pleaded guilty to trying to destroy a Delta airliner with 278 passengers over Detroit on the previous Christmas Day. He had explosives planted in his underwear.

The federal judge asked him if he knew he had broken the law. “Yes, U.S. law,” he said. The cases were proof that terrorist suspects could be tried and convicted in American courts under law, without military tribunals or confessions extracted by torture in secret prisons.

On the home front, Americans had become inured to the gaze of closedcircuit cameras, the gloved hands of airport guards, and the phalanx of cops and guardsmen in combat gear. Many willingly surrendered liberties for a promise of security. They might not love Big Brother, but they knew he was part of the family now.

Yet there was still a sign that the rule of constitutional law might govern counterterrorism in the years to come. A new set of guidelines for the FBI’s intelligence investigations emerged on November 7, 2011. It followed from a decade of struggle over how to use the immense powers thrust upon the Bureau in the war on terror, and three years of trying to repair the damage done in the name of national security under the Bush administration.

The FBI’s new rules set specific legal limits on intelligence searches and seizures, wiretaps and bugs, data mining and electronic eavesdropping, the trapping and tracing of e-mails and cell phones. The 460-page manual, made public with signifi cant deletions, looked like something new in the twenty-first century. It looked as if the American government was trying, in good faith, to balance liberty and security.

The FBI, which still has no legal charter from Congress, had been fi ghting for a century over what it could do in the name of national security. Attorney General Edward Levi had been the fi rst to try to govern the Bureau thirty-fi ve years earlier, in the wake of Watergate. He had acted in the tradition of Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the pillar of the law who first appointed J. Edgar Hoover, and who had warned that a secret police was a menace to a free society.

The FBI might now have created the fi rst realistic operating manual for running a secret intelligence service in an open democracy. The new rules said at the outset that “rigorous obedience to constitutional principles and guarantees is more important than the outcome of any single interview, search for evidence, or investigation.” They made it clear that the FBI could not investigate people for “opposing war or foreign policy, protesting government actions, or promoting certain religious beliefs,” or because they were aliens or anarchists or Arab Americans. The unleashing of the unlimited powers of the FBI’s ability to conduct unwarranted searches and seizures and surveillances now required a declaration of war by Congress rather than a secret presidential decree. These principles once might have seemed self-evident, but the FBI had violated them time and again in the past.

The continuity of Robert Mueller contributed to this change. No other FBI director ever had the stability to serve the ten-year term that Congress had imposed on the offi ce after Hoover’s death. Some had left in disgrace or disrepute. Mueller had persevered. He passed the milestone a decade after the 9/11 attacks. Obama asked him to stay on for two more years. He would serve until September 2013, if he could withstand the pressure of each passing day. He would be approaching seventy by then, and he had aged in offi ce, his hair white, his face gray, his eyes weary, as every morning brought a barrage of fresh threats and false alarms. But ever since he had confronted a president over the limits of his powers to spy on American citizens, he had stood for a principle. He had said back then that he wanted no historian to write: “You won the war on terrorism, but you sacrificed your civil liberties.”

The chance remained that the principle might prevail, the possibility that in a time of continual danger Americans could be both safe and free.

Many modern political dynasties are built on "like father, like son." However, Mitt Romney's cautious presidential bid in many ways highlights how he's different from his old man. In 1967, former Michigan Governor George Romney candidly revealed that he had changed his stance on the Vietnam War with the remark, "When I came back from Vietnam, I had just about the greatest brainwashing that anybody can get." Most pundits agree that this remark effectively ended George Romney's 1968 presidential campaign.

Journalist Ronald Scott is the author of "Mitt Romney: An Inside Look at the Man and His Politics." 

The ripple effect of the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis and a chronically sluggish economy have changed the face of poverty in America. Sections of the population who never previously utilized the "safety net" have experienced long periods of under, or unemployment and struggled to get by. According to recent Census data, 47 million Americans now live below the poverty line. In 55 cities across the country, the new urban poor have responded by living in tent cities.

Pastor Steve Brigham is the founder of Tent City, a makeshift village for homeless people near Lakewood, New Jersey.

The unlikely story of Jeremy Lin continues in dramatic fashion. Knicks sensation Jeremy Lin made a tie breaking 3-pointer with less than a second to play to cap his finishing flurry of six straight points as New York rallied to beat Toronto, extending its winning streak to six games. Joining us now is Takeaway director and super fan Jay Cowit.

In 2009, the Food and Drug Administration rejected an artificial hip manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. However, the company continued to sell the hip replacement in Europe and marketed a related model stateside. More than 90,000 patients worldwide used these faulty devices, and resulted in painful corrective surgery for many. In the wake of an August 2010 recall and thousands of lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson has lost at least $3 billion.

Barry Meier is reporter for our partner The New York Times.

After Ben-Ali fled Tunisia, and Mubarak ran from Egypt, the Libyan revolution began in Benghazi and then traveled east, to Tripoli. After an intense civil war bolstered by international support, Moammar Gadhafi’s 40-year reign finally ended last October in his hometown of Sirte. As Libyans celebrate the anniversary of their revolution, the state of their government is still in flux, and the role of women in Libyan civic life is particularly uncertain.

Zahra'a Langhi, co-founder of the Libyan Women’s Platform for Peace, joins the program to discuss the state of women's rights in Libya.

Israel says the bombs set off in Thailand were similar to those used earlier this week against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. Iran has been implicated in the blasts, something Tehran denies. Israel's deputy prime minister says the attacks are all part of Iran's plan to become a super power.

After months of squabbling, congress has reached a tentative deal on an extension of the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits that would last until the end of the year. Initially the GOP said they would not approve an extension unless it was financed by other spending cuts, but have since rescinded that position. So what's changed?

Republican leaders now say they support an extension of those payroll tax cuts for working Americans about $ 1,000 a year for people getting a regular paycheck. But can they make that stick among conservative members who have insisted that any tax cut extension be paid for with offsetting spending cuts?

Todd Zwillich is Takeaway Washington correspondent.

Three years ago, Chris Brown made headlines when he brutally beat his then-girlfriend Rhianna, putting her in the hospital and forcing both to cancel their scheduled Grammy performances. Brown was invited back for this year's awards show, and performed twice to great acclaim. Since Sunday's event, many of Brown's female fans — aka members of "Team Breezy" — have expressed their support by tweeting that they would let him beat them up.

Jacquelyn Campbell is the Anna D’wolf endowed chair and professor in the School of Nursing at John’s Hopkins.

President Obama had some harsh words for Chinese authorities during his state of the union address last January: "I will not stand by when our competitors don’t play by the rules," he said. "We've brought trade cases against China at nearly twice the rate as the last Administration, and it’s made a difference." The tough talk continued while President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met with Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping yesterday. 

"We want to work with China to make sure that everybody is working by the same rules of the road when it comes to the world economic system," President Obama said. He continued, "It also means that on critical issues like human rights, we will continue to emphasize what we believe is the importance of recognizing the aspirations and rights of all people." 

For more on the future of U.S.-China relations, and if China will "play by the rules" when it comes to trade and intellectual property, is William Alford, a Professor at Harvard Law School.

Members of Congress appear to have reached a deal to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of the year. The agreement comes after GOP leaders reneged on their insistence the tax break be offset with other spending cuts.

The Future of US-China Relations; A Troubling Twitter Trend; A Closer Look at the Republican's Payroll Tax Cut Deal; America's Tent Cities; Romney To Michigan Voters: "I am a son of Detroit"; An 'Inside Look' at Mitt Romney; Women's Rights in Libya One Year After the Revolution; Unapproved Hip Replacement Caused Pain Worldwide; Admiral Seeks Greater Authority Over Special Ops Deployment; Jeremy Lin and Linsanity Continues

Recent reporting by our partner The New York Times raised fresh concerns over the safety and well-being of the workers that staff Apple's supplier factories in China. Apple now says that it has requested an independent labor group to audit the conditions at its suppliers' factories, with the first inspections under way starting yesterday.

David Barboza is Shanghai business correspondent for The New York Times.

This week marks the 136th Annual Westminster Dog Show at Madison Square Garden. It's the biggest and longest-running, continuously held canine show in the country. Sarah Montague is a senior producer and the Westminster Dog Show correspondent for our co-producer WNYC. She's been covering the event for the past 12 years and tells us about the culture of America's most beloved dog show.

Over the weekend, passages from Rick Santorum's 2005 book "It Takes a Family" attracted media attention and landed the Republican candidate in the hot seat. They pertained to women in the work force: "The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness." In the past, Santorum has also spoken out against women taking part in combat operations. With an increasingly vocal female presence in the party, these remarks could push the Santorum surge down — again.

Renee Amoore is president of the healthcare organization The Amoore Group and Deputy Chair of the Pennsylvania Republican state party. Jennifer DeJournett is president and co-founder of VOICES of Conservative Women.

Millions of people love their iPhones, iPads, and refuse to be separated from their iPods. But lately our relationship with our Apple technology has been tainted by guilt after a story from our partner The New York Times revealed significant safety concerns for workers at some of Apple's overseas factories in China. Stories of long, abusive hours and horrifying conditions came to light. Now Apple is trying to allay concerns. The company has asked an independent labor group to audit the working conditions at its suppliers' factories.  

We're joined by Ken Auletta who writes the Annals of Communications column for The New Yorker magazine. He's also the the author of "Googled: The End of the World As We Know It."

On Sunday, the Arab League called for the U.N. Security Council to create a joint peacekeeping force for Syria and urged all Arab states to sever diplomatic ties with president Bashar al-Assad's regime. The U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay told the General Assembly that the scale of abuses by the Syrian government indicate that crimes against humanity have taken place since March, and are continuing. In response, the U.S. is hoping to meet with international partners to discuss how to end the violence.

White House press secretary Jay Carney discusses what the U.S. role could be.

Be it about wearing the veil or their general place in society, discussion in the West about Muslim women — especially those conducted by non-Muslims — tend to portray them as silent, oppressed, and submissive victims. However, a new book titled "Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women" reveals the diverse and sometimes unconventional experiences of Muslim-American women in sex and romance. 

Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi are co-authors of "Love Inshallah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a jack of all trades — and a master of each. During his 20 year NBA career with the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Lakers, he won six NBA championships and a record six regular season MVP Awards. He also made a big splash as an actor, debuting in Bruce Lee's "Game of Death" and making notable cameos in films like "Airplane!." And now, he's the author of "What Color Is My World?," a book for children about African-American inventors.

Less than one month away from the anniversary of the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster — the world's largest since Chernobyl — the Nuclear Regulatory Commission granted a license to build and operate two reactors at a nuclear plant in Georgia. These will be the first reactors built in the U.S. since 1978. 

Matt Wald is a reporter for our partner The New York Times who has covered nuclear power for 30 years.

As part of The Takeaway's week-long focus on Syria, Ayat Shukairy, a listener from Detroit, joins the program to share updates from her family and friends currently living in Damascus, Homs, and Hama. Syrian government forces have reportedly stepped up their attacks on the besieged city of Homs. Roads in and out of parts of the city have been blocked and a week-long bombardment of tanks helicopter and artillery fire has reportedly killed hundreds.

Ayat Shukairy, a Takeaway listener from Detroit, has family and friends in Syria.

The 39th annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) began on Thursday with speeches from Jim DeMint, Stephen Halbrook, Michele Bachmann, Anne Coulter, and President Eisenhower’s granddaughter Susan Eisenhower, among others. With invocations of Reagan and cries for party unity, the three-day event could help give focus to what has been a lukewarm GOP race.

Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington correspondent, reports on the division among conservative voters when it comes to supporting Mitt Romney.

On Thursday the government approved a $26 billion settlement for homeowners who’ve been foreclosed upon or are currently at risk. Approximately two million Americans will get a $1,800 settlement check, which is a lot of people but not a whole lot of money: the Joint Economic Committee of Congress found that the average foreclosure in 2008 cost $7,200. This money also won't cover losses accrued by local governments who lost tax revenue, or neighbors whose own property values fell.

Paul Kiel is reporter at ProPublica. Gordon is a resident of Davie, Florida who lost his home in December of 2008. He currently lives in a mobile home.

Boxing has been a staple of the summer Olympics since 1904. But for the first time ever, women will step into the ring and compete for the gold in this year's London games. And the lead-up to the main event promises to be just as intense: there are 24 contenders but only three spots on the U.S. Women's Olympic Boxing Team.

Bertha Aracil is a female boxer and competing for a spot on the U.S. Women's Olympic Boxing Team. Sue Jaye Johnson is a photographer and creator of the multimedia project, "Women Box."

Approximately one-third of adults and 17 percent of children in the U.S. are obese. While this public health crisis has spawned a billion dollar diet industry, reality shows dedicated to weight loss, and the First Lady's "Let's Move" program, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta didn’t think these were enough to discourage children from making unhealthy choices. The hospital launched a billboard and digital campaign featuring obese children with derogatory narration and captions. The ads are powerful, but they’ve also been criticized for stigmatizing overweight children.

Dr. Mark Wulkan is surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, who served as a consultant on the ads. Abby Ellin is the author of “Teenage Waistland: A former fat kid weighs in on living large, losing weight, and how parents can (and can’t) help.”

This week’s big releases offer up some variations on Hollywood's most beloved genres: "Safe House," a CIA mole-thriller with Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds; "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," a kid-friendly sci-fi adventure starring The Rock and Michael Cain; and the tear-jerking amnesia romance "The Vow" starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum.

Rafer Guzman is film critic for Newsday, and co-host of the Takeaway’s Movie Date Podcast. Kristen Meinzer is culture producer for the Takeaway and also co-hosts the Movie Date podcast.

At least two dozen people are dead, 175 wounded in the Syrian city of Aleppo as explosions struck outside security forces' compounds. Earlier we spoke to the BBC's Jim Muir about today's attacks.

It's Friday, the time we spend time with our most valuable minds here on The Takeaway to look at the week's stories. Is the Conservative Political Action Conference a right-wing Star Trek convention? How will the gay marriage issue play out? And why has contraception become a political issue? Our panel tackles these stories and more.

Ron Christie is a Takeaway contributor and Republican political strategist. Jeff Yang writes the Tao Jones column for The Wall Street Journal and blogs for our co-producer WNYC's It's a Free Country. Farai Chideya is a journalist and blogger at Farai.com.

The Pentagon announced new rules this week that would allow women to serve closer to the front lines and will be implemented later this summer. The changes would allow women to serve in non-infantry battalion jobs, such as radio operators, intelligence analysts, medics, radar operators and tank mechanics. This could open up 14,000 new jobs to female troops, largely in the army and marine corps.  

Military analyst Paula Broadwell served for a decade in the U.S. military and has spent nearly two decades working in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency. Former Marine Anu Bhagwati is the executive director of the Service Women’s Action Network. 

Greece has more homework to do to avoid default and global economic tremors. Eurozone finance ministers considered the latest austerity package and asked for more. First, Athens must find another $ 430 million in savings by Wednesday when the finance ministers meet again. Then Greece’s parliament must approve the terms of the full package of cuts and reforms.

Notes from the Conservative Political Action Conference; Women Boxing in 2012 Olympics; Two New Nuclear Reactors Get Go-Ahead; On-the-Ground Updates from Syria; What the Mortgage Settlement Means for the Housing Market; Public Debate Over a Controversial Childhood Obesity Campaign; Some Combat Restrictions for Women Lifted; New Movie Releases: 'The Vow,' 'Journey 2,' and 'Safe House'; Kareem Abdul Jabbar's New Children's Book Celebrates Black History

A massive settlement has been reached between the government and five of the nation's biggest banks over foreclosure abuses and relief. Our partner The New York Times says the $ 26 billion deal will be doled out to 2 million homeowners. It's part of a broad national settlement aimed at halting the housing market's downward slide and holding banks accountable. Joining the program is Nelson Schwartz, business reporter with our partner, The Times.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-Moon says the Arab League mission to Syria may be revived after the Security Council failed to act. Russia with China blocked the U.N. resolution last week and Syrian forces are continuing to pound opposition strongholds, including the city of Homs.

The Takeaway devoted a full hour this morning to the ongoing situation in Syria. With reports from the ground, a history of the country from David Sanger, Russia's influence in the region, a take from the pro-democracy movement in the U.S., and even the pro-Assad outlook on conflict. The following is our full first hour of coverage in its entirety.

At a time of turmoil and unrest, the future of the Syrian government and its people are at stake. Farid Ghadry, the Syrian-born co-founder and president of the U.S. based Reform Party of Syria, predicts the outcome of the uprisings and what Syria will look like if the Assad regime does indeed fall. As a lobbyist for regime change in Syria, Ghadry talks about how the international community can help the Syrian people in their battle for political reform.

David Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for The New York Times and contributor to WQXR's The Washington Report, explores the history of Syria from the Ottoman Empire to the present day dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. At a time where civilians are under attack by Assad's oppressive regime, Sanger explains the president's rise to power and his family's 40-year reign. He goes in-depth about the complicated relationship with Israel and Syria's ties to Hezbollah.

Sarab Al-Jujakli is the co-founder of the National Alliance of Syria, a pro-democracy group.

It's taken more than a year, but state and federal officials have reached a settlement with five of the biggest U.S. banks over foreclosure abuses and relief. Our partner, The New York Times, pegs the deal at $ 26 billion dollars — money that could help nearly 2 billion homeowners.

The Takeaway continues its series where we talk with voters to see what the political and economic situation feels like on the ground. With the annual Conservative Political Action Conference kicking off Thursday night, we gathered Republican voters to give their opinion on the current state of the GOP. Joining the roundtable discussion are Karen Martin, organizer of the Spartanburg Tea Party; Brad Cranston, pastor at Heritage Baptist Church and member of Iowa Baptists for Biblical Values; William Smith, a conservative blogger for FirstInTheNation.US; and Lisa, a Ron Paul Supporter out of Michigan.

Dr. Ayman Haidar is an internist and founding member of the Syrian American Forum. He explains the pitfalls of what could happen without the rule of the Assad Regime, such as concerns about the country falling into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

The 11-month-old Syrian uprising has been making headlines especially after the government onslaught on Homs on Wednesday. The revolt has turned deadly with many civilians losing their lives in the struggle for regime change. But who are the people behind the opposition? The Takeaway gets a perspective on the ongoing violence in Homs, Syria.

Ramita Navi is a freelance journalist who reported for the PBS documentary, "Syria Undercover." Ilhan Tanir is a correspondent for the Turkish daily Vatan and a columnist for Hurriyet Daily News.

The uprising in Syria is the most serious threat the ruling Assad dynasty has faced since it first came to power more than 40 years ago. With the violence against civilians in Homs, the Syrian government is being criticized by much of the international community. The exception is Russia who has long been an ally of Syria in the Arab Middle East.

Nikolas Gvosdev, a professor of national security studies at the U.S. Naval War College, spells out the relationship between Russia and Syria and the ties that bind them.

Daniel Chirot is professor of international politics at the University of Washington, and author of "Modern Tyrants."

February is Black History Month, and comedian Baratunde Thurston wants you to know that it's the perfect time to buy his new book, "How to Be Black." "The odds are high that you acquired this book during the nationally sanctioned season for purchasing black cultural objects, also known as Black History Month," he writes. "If you're like most people, you buy one piece of black culture per year during this month, and I'm banking on this book jumping out at you from the bookshelf or screen." Baratunde Thurston joins Celeste Headlee to discuss his new book: part-memoir, part-satire, part-political commentary.

Baratunde Thurston is the author of "How to Be Black" and the digital director of The Onion. 

David Sanger's Guide to the History of Syria; Russia's Ties to the Assad Regime; A Personal Look at the Opposition in Syria; Asma Assad: A Modern Tyrants' Wife; A Pro-Assad Look at Syria; Russia's Impact on the Syrian Regime; The Future of Syria; A Closer Look at Santorum's Sweep; Comedian Baratunde Thurston on 'How to Be Black'; Republican Voters Roundtable.

In order to help close the financial gap between his campaign and its republican contenders, the Obama campaign reversed its long-standing opposition to super PACs. The reversal marks the beginning of a new phase in the presidential race both in terms of strategy and ideology, and is yet another sign of the huge role that these largely unregulated fundraising groups will play in the 2012 election cycle.

Joe Hagan is contributing editor for New York Magazine, and recently wrote the article, "The Coming Tsunami of Slime."

On Superbowl Sunday, Clint Eastwood appeared in a two-minute ad that has been dubbed "Half Time in America." Sponsored by the Chrysler car company, it shows a Detroit that escaped the jaws of defeat to become a model for American recovery. Eastwood's narration goes on to suggest that America is in similarly dire straits: “This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is gonna hear the roar of our engines. It’s half time America, and our second half is about to begin.”

To hear more about our nation’s metaphorical match is James Warren, Chicago columnist for our partner The New York Times, Chicago news cooperative, and is a correspondent for The Atlantic.

Alan Huffman and Michael Rejebian have spent the past 18 years doing "oppo" work: the tedious and delicate task of going through public documents about political candidates. The two have co-authored a new book titled "We're with Nobody: Two Insiders Reveal the Dark Side of American Politics," which is peppered with anecdotes about wrangling these files from obstructionist clerks — but never reveals the names of any of their clients.

The Senate finance committee approved a $9.6 billion package of funding offsets for transportation as part of the "The Highway Investment, Job Creation, and Economic Growth Act of 2012." Designed to cover gaps in The Highway Trust Fund, an infrastructure support project that traditionally gathered funds from the federal gas tax, this new transportation bill also controversially greenlights the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska.

Joe Nocera is an op-ed columnist for our partner The New York Times. Todd Zwillich  is The Takeaway's Washington correspondent.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has taken issue with the Obama administration's healthcare bill, which requires all university and hospital insurance plans to cover contraception. Archbishop Timothy Dolan wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that this provision infringes on personal freedoms, "coercing religious ministries and citizens to pay directly for actions that violate their teaching." However, two new recently released polls reveal that American Catholics are more supportive of contraception coverage in employer-provided insurance than non-Catholics.

Lisa Miller is religion columnist at Washington Post and contributing editor at New York Magazine.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower is most commonly remembered as a vocal opponent of communism and a leader who ushered in one of America's most prosperous eras. But a new national memorial in Washington D.C. offers a different image: designed by famed architect Frank Gehry, the proposed monument features Eisenhower as a young, barefoot boy in Abilene, Kansas, gazing on images of his adult accomplishments. This has been met by criticism, mostly from Eisenhower's family.

Susan Eisenhower is one of President Eisenhower’s granddaughters. She’s also the president of the Eisenhower Group, and a leading expert in international security and international relations.

Rick Santorum's campaign team is waking up this morning after landing a big hit last night. He won the Minnesota and Colorado caucuses plus the non-binding Missouri primary. You can be sure Santorum will use this latest twist to try and persuade more conservatives to rally around him as the most credible alternative to Mitt Romney. 

Nathan Heffel is a reporter with KUNC public radio in Greeley, Colorado. Jim Rutenberg is a national political correspondent for our partner The New York Times.

Opponents of same-sex marriage are planning to appeal a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A three judge panel says California's ban on same-sex marriage is in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Sunday's Chrysler Super Bowl ad caused some political reaction, but maybe America needs a pep talk from America's outlaw and tough guy Clint Eastwood. Host John Hockenberry looks at the Eastwood speech in the context of his epic career and America's need for some tough love in these troubled times. Half time in America? Maybe, but we could sure use some encouragement from Clint.

A big night for Rick Santorum as he takes a clean sweep of the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses as well as the Missouri primary. The former Pennsylvania senator took all three contests with at least 40 percent of the vote, even beating Mitt Romney in Missouri by 30 points. After many pundits declared his candidacy dead on arrival, Santorum told supporters, his campaign is back.

California's "Prop 8" Struck Down; GOP Contests in Minnesota, Colorado, and Missouri; Controversy Over Contraception Coverage; What Did Clint and Chrysler Mean by "Half-Time in America"?; Obama Backtracks Position On Super PAC; The Eisenhower Memorial v. The Eisenhower Family; New Transportation Bill Carries Controversy; New Book Reveals the Art of Mudslinging

Ten years ago today, President George W. Bush signed a two-page memorandum called "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees." The memorandum, drafted in part by John Yoo, is now best known as the first of the so-called "terror memos." It argued that the government was exempt from the Geneva Conventions in any war on terror-related investigations, as, the document asserts, the treaty refers only to "High Contracting Parties."

As stateless enemies, the Taliban and al-Qaeda were therefore not covered by the Geneva Conventions. When the U.S. government engaged in such controversial interrogation methods as waterboarding, it was this two-page document that first gave the military license to do so.

Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA Bin Laden Tracking Unit and adjunct professor at Georgetown University's Center for Peace and Security Studies, discusses the memo's impact and legacy.

On Tuesday, Colorado and Minnesota will hold their Republican caucuses, either confirming or casting doubt onto Mitt Romney's lead. But why some states hold caucuses instead of primaries — or in the case of Missouri, use both — in order to determine how many delegates they'll send to a party's national convention is largely a matter of taste.

David Redlawsk is professor of political science at Rutgers University and author of "Why Iowa?: How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process."

Ingrid Reed is a policy analyst, formerly at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.

With an increasingly sophisticated crop of small, inexpensive digital cameras — in addition to those built into the tops of computer monitors and cell phones — more people are making movies than ever before. Equally significant, these little vignettes are reaching a greater audience than ever before. But not everyone's filmmaking skills have caught up.

Filmmaker Roger Sherman, author of "Ready, Steady, Shoot: The Pocket Posh Guide to Great Home Video," offers a lesson in how to make a great amateur video. He even came in early to make one in our studios.

The Takeaway 10 Shot Video

Over the weekend, China and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would've allowed action to be taken against Bashar al-Assad's regime. The U.S. has closed their embassy in Syria, and has begun discussing imposing sanctions. But more pressingly, unlike the intervention in Libya, there seems to be little that the international community can do to protect civilians.

David Sanger is chief Washington correspondent for our partner The New York Times. You can hear him every Monday on New York Public Radio's "The Washington Report." 

Amr Al Azm is a Syrian activist and professor of history at Shawnee State University.

Since early 2007, 4 million families have lost their homes to foreclosure. Only now have state officials around the country begun to finalize a multi-billion dollar settlement with the biggest mortgage-providing banks that engaged in abusive or misleading practices, like robo-signing. Some critics, including those who have already had their homes go underwater, worry that it may let the banks off too easily.

Shaila Dewan is a reporter for our partner The New York Times and will explain more about the upcoming deal.

Gordon is a Takeaway listener on WLRN in South Florida who spent much of his life savings in an attempt to save his home, but ultimately had to short-sell it.

Named for Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow who was allowed to play sports at his local high school during his home-school days, a new bill could give Virginian home-schooled students the chance to play sports with their peers. While some are applauding the opportunity for these students to have a chance to participate, others say it's unfair to taxpayers.

Patrick Foss is a home-schooled soccer player heading to the University of Virginia in the fall to play college soccer.

Ken Tilley is the executive director of the Virginia High School League.

In 1961 Malcolm X came to Brown University to publicly rebut an article published in the school newspaper that criticized the Nation of Islam. Fast-forward to 2011. A Brown University student was assigned to create a historical narrative using anything in the school library and stumbled across one of the oldest recordings of Malcolm X in existence, heard by virtually no one since its initial taping.

Malcolm Burnley and Katharine Pierce The Takeaway to talk about the twists and turns that brought this rare recording to the public. Katherine Pierce wrote the article that first attracted Malcolm X's attention, and Malcolm Burnley is the student who found it.

Whether or not you buy into the idea of American exceptionalism, the U.S. constitution is an exceptional document: the way in which it was crafted, how it secured the rights of citizens, and how 94 percent of nations have modeled their own charters after it. But if you ask Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the constitution is exactly that: historically exceptional, but now a tad out of date. In a recent interview in Egypt, she stated: "I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012."

In line with her comments, a new study has found that fewer and fewer nations are modeling their constitutions after ours.

Here to explain the trend are Adam Liptak, Supreme Court correspondent for The New York Times, and Carne Ross, author of "The Leaderless Revolution."

Nationwide confidence in our lawmakers is at an all time low. And this news isn't like to change that. More than 30 members of Congress have used over $ 300 million in earmarks and other spending to fund many public projects close to their own properties. That's the finding of an extensive investigation published in today's Washington Post. The Post also found 16 lawmakers who had sent tax dollars to places where members of their families work or serve on boards.

David Fallis is one of the Washington Post reporters who wrote the story.

A day of Great Expectations for fans of Charles Dickens. Today's marks the 200th birthday of the writer who gave us "A Tale of Two Cities," "A Christmas Carol," "David Copperfield," among many others. Joining us now from the BBC's studio's in Cambridge England is Dr Jan-Melissa Schramm a Dickens fan, a lecturer in Victorian literature at Trinity Hall of Cambridge University.

Another round of voting today in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Joining us now is Marty Owings, a political reporter for Minnesota Capital News and KFAI, our affiliate in Minneapolis. Marty tells us what he thinks the outcome might be.

After more than 20 years of drilling through two miles of glacial ice Russian scientists have reached the surface of Antarctica's largest sub-glacial lake. The lake hasn't been touched by light in millions of years and may be home to cold-loving organisms that have been left to their own evolutionary devices for millennia. Joining us now is Richard Black, science correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Voters head to the polls today in three states to choose a Republican presidential nominee. Colorado and Minnesota hold caucuses, while Missouri has a primary election. All three contests are non-binding, but candidates are hoping to garner some momentum.

What's the Difference Between a Caucus and a Primary?; A Lesson on Making Better Home Movies; What Can the US Do to Quell Violence in Syria?; Is Our Constitution Out of Date? Ruth Bader Ginsburg May Think So...; Foreclosure Settlement Imminent; "Tebow Bill" May Allow Home-Schoolers to Play on High School Teams; On the Tenth Anniversary of the First "Torture Memo"; Newly-Discovered Recordings Shed Light on a Young Malcolm X

Since its humble beginnings in the Bronx during the 1970s, hip hop has become a global musical phenomenon with attendant forms of style and protest. Perhaps one of the greatest examples of hip hop's recent impact is in the Arab world where formed the soundtrack to the revolution with rappers like Hamada Ben Amor from Tunisia, Cheikh Oumar Cyrille from Senegal, and Mohamed el Deeb from Egypt.

Sujatha Fernandes is author of "Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation."

It was another decisive victory for Mitt Romney as he easily took Nevada this weekend. Things appear to be looking up for the on-again, off-again Republican front-runner. This month's Primary schedule favor the former Massachusetts governor. But with a long road ahead to the Republican National Convention in September, it's still possible that Romney's key GOP antagonist Newt Gingrich could regain his momentum.

Anna Sale is a reporter for our co-producer WNYC's politics website Itsafreecountry.org.

Despite having a higher rate of acceptance in American society and greater media presence than ever before, being gay or transgendered is still difficult, especially for those living in non-metropolitan areas. Approximately 20 to 40 percent of homeless youth are LGBT, experiencing a higher rate of suicide than heterosexuals. But sometimes discrimination and pressure to conform comes just as much from inside the gay community as it does from the outside.

Following Friday's interview with James Clementi, The Takeaway is joined by a listener who has also struggled for acceptance. Michael Williams is a 42-year old gay man and has been out since age 18.

The New York Giants beat New England 21-17 in a game that most certainly would be consider an instant classic. Eli Manning was the game's MVP, completing 30 of 40 passes and engineering the late 4th quarter touchdown drive that would win the Giants the game. Tom Brady could not execute a successful one-minute drive after launching a Hail Mary pass that went unanswered.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin is Takeaway sports contributor. Jack Thornton is a Patriots fan while Chaz Faxton is a Giants fan.

Over the weekend, China and Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have supported an Arab League peace plan for Syria, claiming the plan would have violated Syria’s sovereignty. On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addressed the veto during a speech in Sofia, Bulgaria, stating, "Faced with a neutered Security Council we have to redouble our efforts outside of the United Nations with those allies and partners who support the Syrian people's right to have a better future."

For more on the failed UN resolution and what it means for the future of Syria, The Takeaway turns to Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Mitt Romney has taken a lot of criticism for saying he wasn't "concerned about the very poor" in a post-Florida primary victory interview last week. But some middle-class Americans agree with Romney's sentiment. Kate, a Takeaway listener and delivery driver from Maryland, is frustrated with the very poor, who she believes abuse the system and take opportunities away from people like her.

Tiziana Dearing is CEO of Boston Rising, an antipoverty non-profit organization.

As famous for its commercials as the big game itself, this year the Super Bowl premiered an ad starring New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and Boston mayor Tom Menino. The thirty-second spot promoted Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a coalition group of 600 mayors organized to promote urban safety by preventing the flow of illegal weapons into cities across the United States. While the ad may have seemed out of place alongside ads for cars, websites, and beers, the message it promoted was, in many ways, as uncontroversial as the aforementioned products.

Dan Baum, a contributor to Harper’s Magazine who’s writing a book about guns and the people who love them, joins the program to discuss the reactions to this high-profile spot.

President Obama makes some revealing comments over tensions between Israel and Iran. In a pre-Super Bowl interview with NBC, the president said Israel has not made a decision to strike Iran even as worries grow Tehran is building a nuclear weapon. However, the president wouldn't say if the U.S. would be privy to knowledge of any Israeli-led action before it happens.

Next month, the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English will be released. A project initially undertaken in the 1950s by linguist Federic Cassidy, the goal was to record all the words and phrases that are unique to specific parts of the U.S. Listeners responded with their favorite regionalisms.

Every Monday, The Takeaway looks at the big news stories from the week ahead. Republican presidential candidates head to Colorado, Minnesota and Maine this week; Colorado and Minnesota's caucuses are tomorrow. In Washington, President Obama holds talks on the European debt crisis with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti while Congress takes up the STOCK Act.

Charlie Herman, economics editor for The Takeaway and our co-producer, WNYC Radio. Todd Zwillich, Takeaway Washington Correspondent.

Activists says government troops in Syria are laying siege to the city of Homs. A British human rights organization says at least a dozen people have been killed in the latest round violence.

After the UN Veto, What's Next for Syria?; The Agenda: GOP Campaigning, STOCK Act, President Obama discusses European debt with Italian PM; The Soundtrack to the Arab Spring; Nevada Caucus and the Month Ahead; US Mayors Take on Gun Control...During the Super Bowl; Egyptian Authorities Investigate NGOs; Being Gay: A Listener's Story; No 'Safety Net' for Middle Class?

In September 2010, Tyler Clementi's name became synonymous with bullying, suicide, and the "It Gets Better" project. But while many sensational headlines made it seem as though Clementi was unwillingly outed via a sex tape made available on the internet, the real story is significantly different and far more complicated. New accounts of the case published this week in the New Yorker and OUT magazine — the latter of which was written by Clementi's older brother — reveal the role race, class, and personality had to do with this devastating story.

James Clementi is Tyler Clenenti’s older brother. James shares memories of his brother, and clarifies the real story behind the headlines. 

This week the Susan G. Komen Foundation cut funding for Planned Parenthood, Mitt Romney made headlines when he said he wasn't "concerned about the very poor," and Florida's GOP Primary went to Mitt Romney, with Newt Gingrich clenching a distant second.

This week's panel is Jeff Yang, writer of the Tao Jones column for the Wall Street journal and blogger at our co-producer WNYC's political website, It's a Free Country; Farai Chideya, journalist and blogger at Farai.com; and Ron Christie, Republican political strategist, CEO of Christie Strategies, and former special assistant to George W. Bush.

Poverty and homelessness disproportionately effects those who have served in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard. While the reasons are diverse — the lack of perceived skills by civilian employers, physical and psychological injuries sustained during service, a sluggish economy — the reality is undeniable: veterans make up only ten percent of the population, yet seven percent of veterans live in poverty and one in five are homeless. Of those that have served, the group hardest hit have been National Guard veterans. 

Ted Daywalt is CEO and president of VetJobs. Captain Matt Frieberg is a member of the California National Guard and veteran of the Iraq War.

On Tuesday evening following his Floriday primary victory, Mitt Romney told Soledad O'Brien that, "I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair I'll fix it." The following day, The Takeaway followed up with a segment about the changing face of poverty in America. As part of a continuing conversation about this topic, Ron Robinson joins the program. Robinson is a homeless father of twins who lost his job at AT&T in 2010, and has been moving his family in and out of homeless shelters in Detroit, Michigan ever since. Alex Kotlowitz, journalist, author of the book "There Are No Children Here," and producer of "The Interrupters" also addresses the subject. 

While football may have supplanted baseball as the national pastime, it's not necessarily a universal language. Perhaps you carelessly yell "foul!" during the game, don't fully understand what the "end zone" is, or mistakenly throw up your arms when the opposing team gets a touchback. But fear not: The Takeaway will teach you how to sound smart on Super Bowl Sunday.

Two days away from the Superbowl, the fans of both teams are ready to stake their claims to victory. Edward Valentine is the founder and editor of Big Blue View, a Giants fan site. Jack Thornton co-founded Patriots Planet, one of the team's biggest fansites.

Another positive signal for the economy today as it was revealed that the U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. The economy added 243,000 jobs, more than expected. What does this mean for the economic recovery? Joining the program is Kelly Evans from The Wall Street Journal. 

After the financial meltdown of 2008 people looked to the Securities and Exchange Commission to use its regulatory powers to get to the bottom of the crisis and possibly craft suitable punishments to prevent the same mistakes in the future. Regulation is supposed to discourage not reward bad decisions. But an analysis conducted by our partner The New York Times shows the agency has repeatedly allowed the biggest firms to avoid punishments.

Joining the program is Louise Story investigative reporter for our partner The New York Times.

In a world where one team must face off against another not once, but twice, on the world stage tempers will flare, bodies will be pushed to the limit, and reveling fans will discover if the underdog can triumph over tragedy… or if the top dog will rise again. Cliched? Absolutely, but appropriate: just as they did in 2007, the New England Patriots will face off against the New York Giants in this year's Superbowl.

Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for The Takeaway and co-host of the Movie Date podcast, and Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, Takeaway Sports contributor, talk through this sports sequel of epic proportions.

Current polling has Mitt Romney ahead in Nevada. The primary schedule for February (not to mention lack of debates) leaves Newt Gingrich at a severe disadvantage. Is there any time left for Newt to get his momentum back? Where does the campaign go from here and will Gingrich really stay in the race until the Republican National Convention as he's repeatedly promised?

We speak with Gingrich campaign chairman and former Pennsylvania Congressman Bob Walker.

Clashes in Egypt between security forces and people protesting over the deaths of 74 soccer fans are continuing outside the interior ministry in Cairo. Two people were killed in the city of Suez in confrontations overnight. Sami Noman, a politician linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, tells our partner the BBC that it's unclear whether police at the match had acted improperly or were simply incompetent.

Breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure is facing an escalating backlash over its decision to cut breast screening grants to Planned Parenthood. Some of Komen's local affiliates are openly upset, including all seven in California, and at least one top official has quit, reportedly in protest. 

On Tuesday, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the largest breast cancer advocacy organization in America, pulled $650,000 in funding from Planned Parenthood. In the days afterward, the Komen foundation's move has pleased pro-life activists and organizations while outraging others at the seeming contradiction: Planned Parenthood screens 170,000 women a year for breast cancer. New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has vowed to give Planned Parenthood $250,000 and several top Komen staff and board members have quit in protest.

However, some Susan G. Komen supporters have decided to stay despite their personal politics. Betsi Hurd is a breast cancer survivor who has participated in fundraising efforts for the Komen Foundation. Patrick Hurd is her husband as well as the CEO of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Virginia.

The Aftermath of the Susan G. Komen Planned Parenthood Decision; The 'Safety Net' and Realities of Poverty; Learn to Talk Football with The Takeaway; Komen Foundation Cuts Funding, Romney's "Poor" Comments, Florida GOP Primary; What's Next for Newt Gingrich?; Superbowl XLVI: The Ultimate Sports Movie Sequel?; Super Bowl Predictions from Two Superfans; Veterans Talk about Poverty; The Story Behind Tyler Clementi's Tragic Death

The images of brutality are grim: 74 Egyptians dead but the scene is not Tahrir square in Cairo but a soccer field in the Egyptian city of Port Said. A riot at a soccer match between the team from Port Said and a team from Cairo is responsible for those fatalities and it has sent shock waves deep into Egyptian society already reeling from political chaos. 

Some of the victims from the violence in Port Said are returning to Cairo. Investigations have been called for and accusations that the violence was a set up have been reverberating all day long. Joining us now from Cairo is John Leyne correspondent for our partner the BBC.

Angelo Dundee, who was nearly always right, but mostly he was right about the fighters he taught and fought with, and some of the greatest collaborations in the history of sports. Angelo Dundee has died from complications from a blood clot and stroke. He was 90. Speaking to our partner the BBC this is what Muhammed Ali had to say about his former coach.

If you've got a copy of the Dictionary of Regional English, you know that "hotdish" is a casserole-style meal popular throughout Minnesota. A "quahog" is common word for "clam" in New England. And "Euchre" is a card game beloved by Midwesterners of all stripes. Next month the final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, or DARE, will be released by the Harvard University Press.

It's a project that started in the 1950s, the singular passion of linguist Frederic Cassidy. Since then, the DARE's editors have compiled 60-thousand of regionalisms found across the U.S.

We're joined now by Joan Houston Hall, chief editor of the Dictionary of American Regional English.

Today it's official. The social networking site Facebook filed to sell shares on the stock market. In its filing, the company said it was seeking to raise $5 billion and wants the ticker FB for its shares. But Facebook is aiming higher, hoping that the initial public offering could value the company to somewhere between $75 and $100 billion.

Ian Maude is an analyst with Enders Analysis in the UK, and a former Vice President at AOL.

The U.S. military combat role in Afghanistan maybe over as early as next year. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta says that he wants U.S. forces to switch to providing training and assistance for Afghan forces by late-2013. Mitt Romney said that Leon Panetta's announcement made no sense.

Don Cornelius, the creator of "Soul Train," died Wednesday of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He began his career as a journalist who wrote passionately about the civil rights movement.  After noticing the lack of African American music on popular television, he created the Chicago-based show "Soul Train" in 1970 to showcase the funky blending of gospel and R&B that is soul music. It quickly gained an audience and went into syndication nationally a year later. Celeste Headlee looks back on why "Soul Train" was groundbreaking and reflects on the may ways that Cornelius' legacy lives on. 

Jessica Ahlquist, a 16-year-old-junior at Cranston High School West, is an outspoken atheist who believes that prayer should not be on display in public schools. Last month she expressed her views at school board hearings and a federal judge ruled in her favor deeming prayer's presence at Cranston High School to be unconstitutional. In retaliation, residents have threatened Ahlquist and others like State Representative Peter G. Palumbo have called her "an evil little thing." 

Jessica talks about being an atheist and the reactions against her within the community. Sarah Barringer Gordon, a Professor of History and Constitutional Law at the University of Pennsylvania, joins the conversation.

Perhaps it was just a poor choice of words on Mitt Romney's part. Flush with victory after his win in the Florida primary, Mitt Romney appeared on CNN yesterday morning and said this: "I'm in this race because I care about Americans. I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there. If it needs repair I'll fix it."

Taken on its face this could seem like a political gaffe or a tone-deaf critique of the state of America’s working poor. But looked at in another light the statement reveals certain assumptions about the blurry line between America's middle and lower classes and the welfare programs that help protect some but not others. We want to look at those programs to see where the holes are and to see who gets support.

David Shipler is a Puliter Prize winning writer and author of "The Working Poor." Also on the air is Alexandra Jarrin who has been unemployed for three years, Alexandra has been on and off social welfare programs while she recently found work selling Comcast subscriptions by commission.

Emergency meetings of the cabinet and parliament have been called in Egypt after riots at a football match left at least 74 people dead. Supporters of the local team from Port Said, al-Masri are accused of attacking fans from the Cairo al-Ahli team. Hanan Zenini who works for al-Ahli believes the violence was planned.

In the last 15 years, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have all replaced bilingual education with English immersion programs as a way to address the achievement gap between native and non-native speakers. Statistics show that only 11 percent of California’s English learners reached proficiency last year. How to teach new immigrants English has become an increasingly divisive debate in classrooms across the country with politicians like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich chiming in to show their support of English immersion programs.

Devin Browne is a reporter for the Fronteras Project, a multimedia collaboration focusing on the Southwestern border between the United States and Mexico, led by KJZZ in Phoenix and KPBS in San Diego. 

Professor Robert Slavin is the Director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University. He co-authored a breakthrough study comparing bilingual education and English immersion.

On Sunday, the American Embassy in Cairo offered to shelter American citizens barred from leaving the country after the Egyptian government instituted a travel ban on 17 American citizens working for NGOs within the country. Sam LaHood, son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, is among the Americans stuck in Cairo. The American Embassy's need to shelter American citizens in a once-friendly nation symbolizes a serious rift in U.S.–Egypt relations.

Michael Posner is the Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor for the U.S. State Department.

Back in February 1982, then-Syrian President Hafez al-Assad unleashed his troops on the city of Hama in an attempt to wipe out the Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters. The Massacre lasted for a month and tens of thousands of Syrians lost their lives. Now the Syrian people are rising against the current president Bashar al-Assad in hopes of ending a 40-year dictatorship of the Assad family.

Tim Whewell is a correspondent for the BBC who recently returned from assignment in Syria. Abdelghani Sibahi was a member of the Syrian Special Forces during the Hama Massacre. Now living in the US, he actively speaks out against the Assad regime.

On Wednesday, American Airlines declared that it would lay off 13,000 workers or 15 percent of its workforce. The company is attempting to emerge from bankruptcy, which it filed last November. Along with the layoffs, the company is seeking to cut employee pensions and some health benefits. AA CEO Tom Horton called the decisions "painful" but said in the end, the moves would preserve tens of thousands of jobs that would have otherwise been lost.

Barbara Peterson is the senior aviation correspondent for Conde Nast Traveler and the author of "Blue Streak: Inside JetBlue, the Upstart that Rocked an Industry."

Teenager Faces Public Outrage Over School Prayer Lawsuit; American Airlines Seeks to Layoff 13,000; Remembering Don Cornelius, Creator of Soul Train; The Hama Massacre: 30 Years Later; Tensions Rise in US-Egypt Relations; English Immersion: The Bilingual Education Debate; What Percent Are You? Poverty and the Social Safety Net

Despite his vitriolic attacks against fellow frontrunner Mitt Romney, Tuesday night's primary was a disappointment for Newt Gingrich. In addition to losing Florida's 50 delegates, his second-place status is the widest margin of victory the GOP contest thus far. But Gingrich has vowed to stay the course. With the majority of the race ahead of them, it's still possible for him to grab the nomination — but without the support of the front-loaded states, it's not likely.

Ron Christie is the Republican political strategist and CEO of Christie Strategies and former special assistant to President George W. Bush. Steffen Schmidt is professor of Political Science at Iowa State University and blogger for It’s a Free Country.

Stephen Colbert's super PAC, Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow has raised more than $1 million since getting a green-light from the Federal Election Commission last June. Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow has managed to find hilarity in the minutiae of campaign finance — and revealed its inner workings to millions of Americans. But none of this would've been possible without Trevor Potter, Colbert’s attorney and former FEC Commissioner.

Trevor Potter is the former FEC Commissioner and an attorney at Caplin and Drysdale, and joins the program to discuss who has been funding super PACs that back specific candidates.

Initially scheduled for March, Florida fought to have its primary moved up to January this year — and lost 50 delegates in the process. With a record number of voters turning up to the polls, it's clear that the sunshine state wants to assert itself as a political kingmaker alongside Iowa and New Hampshire.

Carl Hiaasen is a columnist for The Miami Herald and author of several novels and children’s books.

The complete audio recording from Air Force One on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination has now been made available online, including 42 minutes of previously unreleased tape. It covers a phone call of condolence from newly sworn-in President Johnson to Rose Kennedy, as well as code-name heavy communications between Air Force chief of staff General Curtis LeMay, an outspoken critic of Kennedy.

Facebook is scheduled to release its initial public offering sometime on Wednesday, and is rumored to be valued at $100 billion. If it turns out to be worth more than $100 billion, Facebook would be the fifteenth-largest IPO in world history, out-valuing Google's 2004 IPO by sixfold. This means big changes for the company itself, which could see many of its chief ideas people and programmers striking out on their own.

Media theorist Douglas Rushkoff is the author of "Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commandments for a Digital Age" and has more insight on what the IPO means for Facebook.

Political die-hards know how to truly gauge the mood of the country this primary season. You have to keep one eye on the television and one eye on Twitter. Sure you can read the story in the paper the next day, but the excitement develops in real time through a stream-of-conscious and subconscious that comes right into our laptops and iPhones. Takeaway co-host John Hockenberry takes a look at how the story of Florida's GOP primary unfolded on the ubiquitous social media tool.  

What if all we had was time? What if our youth was everlasting, but the time we has was limited? In this futuristic sci-fi thriller everyone stops aging at the tender age of 25. The only problem is that the time you have left is a commodity. People trade minutes and hours instead of dollars, leaving a cup of coffee to cost you about 90 seconds, give or take. This is the world that Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried find themselves in as their characters navigate this post-apocalyptic experience. As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway.

Our partner the BBC has gotten its hands on a secret NATO report on the state of the Taliban. It shows Pakistan's security services are directly assisting the Taliban in Afghanistan and know where senior Taliban leaders are hiding. Joining us now is Bilal Sarwary, correspondent for our partner the BBC.

The UN Security Council is debating a draft resolution to call on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to resign. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says after a 10 month uprising, it's time for change.

Ten years ago this week, Wall Street Journal South Asia bureau chief Daniel Pearl was abducted and killed by Pakistani militants. His grisly murder shocked the world, heralding the end of innocence for many foreign correspondents. It also became a rallying cry for those supporting the war on terror as well as those in Afghanistan and Iraq. But for those who actually knew Pearl, it was something else entirely.

Asra Nomani was a colleague and close friend of the late Daniel Pearl. She is the co-author of “The Truth Left Behind: Inside the Kidnapping and Murder of Daniel Pearl.”

Ten days after a devastating defeat in South Carolina, Mitt Romney is back. The former Massachusetts governor easily cruised to victory in the Florida GOP primary. He took 46 percent of the more than 1.5 million votes cast. He garnered heavy support from women and Latinos and told supporters he is ready to lead the party and the nation. Newt Gingrich was 14 points behind in second place.

Wednesday is the 110th birthday of Harlem Renaissance author and social activist Langston Hughes. Celebrated around the world for his emotionally charged yet economic use of language, one of the lesser-known aspects of Hughes' legacy is that of lyricist. In a collaboration with the African-American classical composer William Grant Still - and grandfather of The Takeaway's own Celeste Headlee - Hughes created an opera based on the life of Haitian revolution leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines titled "Troubled Island."

Terrance McKnight is weekday evening host on WQXR, New York Public Radio's classical music station.

He will also host "I, Too, Sing America: Music in the Life of Langston Hughes," which premieres tonight at 9 pm Eastern on WQXR. The program tells the story of Hughes’ life in music, including the dramatic tale of his collaboration with William Grant Still.

Langston Hughes reads his poem "One-Way Ticket"

An excerpt from 'Troubled Water'

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney won a decisive victory in yesterday’s Florida primary, dealing a major setback to Newt Gingrich’s hopes of a fully-realized insurgent candidacy. With decided forward momentum, it's clear that Romney has recovered from the miscalled Iowa caucus victory and is now leading the GOP pack: Romney won with 46 percent of the vote as compared to Gingrich’s 32 percent. Meanwhile, former Iowa frontrunners Rick Santorum came in third with 13 percent, and Ron Paul only carried seven percent of the vote.

Anna Sale is a reporter for It’s a Free Country. Todd Zwillich is The Takeaway's Washington Correspondent

Remembering Daniel Pearl; A Recap of the Florida Primary; Trevor Potter on the Rise of the Super PAC; Previously Unreleased Recordings From Day of JFK Assassination; Gingrich's Next Move; Florida Primary Told in Tweets; Facebook's Game-Changing IPO; Tracking Down MF Global's Missing Millions; What Romney's Florida Win Means for the Rest of the Race; Celebrating Langston Hughes and a Personal Connection

On Monday Arab League representatives met with the United Nations Security Council to discuss a plan of action for Syria. More than 5,000 Syrians have been killed by government forces since protests against President Bashar Al-Assad began last March. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton delivered a strong message of support to the Syrian resistance the same day: "The longer the Assad regime continues its attacks on the Syrian people and stands in the way of a peaceful transition, the greater the concern that instability will escalate and spill over throughout the region."

Dr. Shadi Hamid is the Director of Research at the Brookings Doha Center. He wrote a piece promoting foreign intervention in Syria in The Atlantic. Obeida Nahas, a member of the Syrian National Council that is meeting with the United Nations.

The next stop for GOP presidential hopefuls is the Nevada caucus on Saturday. Unlike contests in the East and Midwest, the Silver state's largely libertarian voters are less interested in social issues and religion and more concerned with gun reform laws, jobs, education and immigration reform. The latter point is particularly tricky: while Latinos generally don't participate in caucuses, they make up 15 percent of the general election's voters.

Greg Ferraro is president of the Ferraro Group, a leading public relations and public affairs firm in Nevada and a former campaign advisor for Bob Dole and George W. Bush. Angeanette Damon is lead political reporter for the Las Vegas Sun.

In addition to 105 delegates, the winner of Tuesday night's primary will also get all 50 of Florida's votes at the GOP convention in August. This makes this contest more important than Iowa, South Carolina, and New Hampshire combined. Phil Latzman, reporter for WLRN and The Miami Herald joins The Takeaway to give the latest on the ground in Miami.

Members of the Oglala Sioux tribe live on the very rural Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, most of whom do not have cars. Traveling during winter months is compounded by infrequently plowed gravel and dirt roads. Given that their county only has six days of early voting in the presidential primaries — while residents in the rest of South Dakota have 46 days to vote — some Ogala have perceived this as discriminatory. 25 tribe members are suing the overseer of the elections, South Dakota secretary of state Jason Gant as well as county officials.

Steven Sandven is the attorney representing the tribal members. Larry Norden is acting director for the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and co-author of the Center’s recent report entitled “Voting Law Changes in 2012.”

After the subprime mortgage crisis and subsequent financial fallout in 2008, all eyes have been on Wall Street. Over the past ten years, the Securities and Exchange Commission has had more cases and raised penalties against those committing fraud. However, they've also given a pass to big firms like JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America: in more than 300 instances, the S.E.C. granted exemptions on sanctions created specifically to punish companies that had settled charges of securities fraud. Such pardons have allowed these institutions to enjoy benefits reserved for law-abiding companies.

Louise Story is an investigative reporter for our partner The New York Times.

Twenty years ago American folklorist and ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax designed "The Global Jukebox," a database that used descriptive tools to identify and link archival music and dance footage. The Global Jukebox was essentially Pandora — but conceived long before technology that could realize it existed. Ten years after his death, Lomax's dream may finally be realized: all of his recordings have been put online, but it will take at least another year to get his collection of dance film into the database.

Don Fleming is executive director of The Alan Lomax Archives.

With three different victors in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, whichever candidate carries Florida will have a decisive lead. And key to taking Florida is swaying Latino voters. However, Governor Jeb Bush has been hesitant to speak out or endorse any of the frontrunners because of their immigration policies: Romney wants to make English the official language of government and opposes the Dream Act while Gingrich favors tightening border security and proposes visa reform.

Bertica Cabrera Morris is senior advisor to the Mitt Romney campaign, and has been coordinating Latino outreach in Florida.

Sylvia Garcia is national Hispanic inclusion director for Newt Gingrich's campaign.

Twenty five of the EU's 27 member states have agreed to join a fiscal treaty to enforce budget discipline. The Czech Republic and the UK refused to sign up. And there's still the question about what to do about Greece. Joining us now is Duncan Crawford, European correspondent for our partner the BBC

The polls are now open across much of the Sunshine State. Mitt Romney appears to be on his way to victory, but Florida has a record of providing election surprises and cliffhangers.

In 1961, Ezra Jack Keats wrote and illustrated his first children’s book. It was called "The Snowy Day" and it told the story of Peter, a young, African-American boy in Brooklyn, enjoying the season's first snowfall. The book was immediately popular. Prior to its publication, no other mainstream children’s book had featured a black hero in a non-caricatured way.

Dr. Deborah Pope was a friend of the late Ezra Jack Keats and is the executive director of the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. She vividly remembers the public's reaction to "The Snowy Day," and how Keats was sometimes hurt by it.

What happens in the Florida Primary is not just important to Florida, Romney, Gingrich and the gang. This is a campaign year for everyone in the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. And while Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is in a safe seat in his own district he's leading the charge to get more GOP members into the House and Senate.

Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich got some time with the high profile House Majority Leader to find out just how the Republican leadership plans to pull in votes between now and November.

By long-standing tradition, some topics for the President are off limits in press conferences and interviews. Obviously, some aspects of national security fall into this category. But last night President Obama strayed into territory few thought he'd risk talking about in public, the use of unmanned drones. The President was taking part in a an hour-long video "hangout" on Google's social network when he starting laying out a detailed defense of America's drone policy.

Ilyias Khan, Islamabad reporter for our partner the BBC, joins the program.

A Florida voter gets a mailing from Newt Gingrich two weeks after he's voted for Mitt Romney. Hundreds of thousands of Floridians cast their ballots in early voting. And that means, for Gingrich, it may be not too little but too late. About 40 percent of the votes may be cast in Florida before the polls open today.

Landing the Latino Vote in Florida; The Premiere of The Global Jukebox; New Report Finds Securities and Exchange Commission Lenient on Wall Street; Eric Cantor Addresses Voters' Frustrations; Celebrating the 50th Anniverary of "The Snowy Day"; Should the U.S. Intervene in Syria?; South Dakota Sioux Tribe File Voting Discrimination Case; Polls Open in Florida; Looking Ahead to the Nevada Caucus

Many banks charge a fee if a minimum balance isn't maintained in a checking account. Frequently this is calculated in terms of an "average daily balance", a running total of where an account holder stands every day in maintaining that minimum average. But no bank provides a way for account holders to track it themselves, nor provide the metric they use. And, as The New York Times has noted, banks frequently don't calculate the average until the end of the month.

Ron Lieber co-authored that New York Times story, and here to explain more.

On Saturday, an estimated 2,000 people participated in the Oakland Rise-Up! Festival, an Occupy Oakland demonstration. However, the situation turned violent halfway through the afternoon as protesters began tearing down construction barricades to a building they planned to re-purpose as a community action center. Riot police used tear gas and flash bombs to disperse the crowd, who reportedly retaliated by pelting officers with broken bottles, pipes, and improvised explosive devices. The protesters went on to enter and vandalize City Hall, burning two American flags.

Ali Winston is a freelancer reporter in Oakland. Kara Tina is a member of the Occupy Oakland Movement Assembly.

Unlike the contests in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Florida's Republican base is extremely diverse. With conservative Cuban-Americans in South Beach, military bases in the Panhandle, moderates in Tampa, and predominantly white, liberal-leaning Jacksonville, the candidates' attempts to form cohesive, unique messages will be difficult. 

Sergio Bustos is state politics editor at The Miami Herald. Ruy Teixeira is a senior fellow at The Center for American Progress and author of "Red, Blue and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics."

This week, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich battle for votes in the Florida Primary. Republican candidates then move on to Nevada, where the state will caucus on Saturday. Both Florida and Nevada have a significant Latino population, and the candidates will likely use their campaigns to attract Latino voters across the United States. As the Republican candidates duke it out in Florida, the Senate will introduce the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act), to prevent lawmakers from trading stocks based on information from Congressional briefings.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release unemployment numbers for January. Finally, Facebook is set to release its IPO this week, which will likely value the site at a figure between $75 billion and $100 billion.

Ruben Navarrette is a nationally-syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Also joining the program is Charlie Herman, economics editor for The Takeaway and WNYC Radio.

Early Sunday morning, approximately 2,000 Syrian soldiers launched an assault on the suburbs of Damascus. Armed tanks rolled into the outskirts of the city where many dissident soldiers have taken up residence. This latest spate of violence comes as the Arab League officially suspended its monitoring mission in Syria citing increasing violence and civilian deaths.

Amer Al Sadeq, a member of the Syrian Revolution Coordinators Union, joins the Takeaway from Damascus.

President Obama's old Chrysler 300C sedan has been listed on eBay with an opening bid of one million dollars. With 20,800 miles on the car, the woman who posted it — a self-described "life-long Ronald Reagan old-school conservative" — says she's just doing it for the money. But whether the president's late-model car could actually fetch such a sum is debatable.

Ryan Porter is professional blogger for Celebrity Cars Blog, and is skeptical about the price tag.

The U.S. is out of Iraq. President Obama made that point in last week's State of the Union address. But there are still eyes on Iraq particularly those places where there are still U.S. personnel — such as the U.S. Embassy In Baghdad. Those eyes are in the form of predator drones, watching over Baghdad according to Eric Schmitt terrorism correspondent for our partner The New York Times.

Earlier this month we reported the U.S. was taking steps to talk to the Taliban in Qatar. Plans have been agreed to set up some kind of public affairs office but that move did not play well with the President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. And so he's jump-started the talks by attempting to create his own dialogue with the Taliban. 

Senior officials in Kabul have told our partner the BBC the Taliban has agreed to the meeting. No further details have been given but talks are expected to start in the coming weeks.

Joining the program from the BBC World Service in London is Alex Strick, author of "An Enemy We Created: The Myth of the Taliban Al-Qaeda Merger."

How much would you pay for a 2005 Chrysler? Well, an anonymous seller on eBay is asking for a million dollars, but it's no ordinary car. The Chrysler once belonged to none other than President Barack Obama, who used it when on trips home to Chicago when he was just a Senator from Illinois. So is a President's former sedan really worth one million dollars?

Ryan Porter is here to explain. Ryan writes for Celebrity Cars Blog and he joins us from Seattle.

One day before the Florida primary the polls show Mitt Romney pulling ahead of Newt Gingrich thanks in part to a $16 million ad blitz across the state by Romney. So has Mitt sealed the deal? Can Gingrich pull out another upset? Romney may walk away with the nomination if he could pull out the Florida victory. We will find out what the field looks like this morning.

Phil Latzman is a news anchor and host at WLRN-Miami Herald News, and a reporter for It's a Free Country, the political website from our partner WNYC.

Syria's government sending soldiers, tanks, and armored vehicles into suburbs of Damascus in an effort to stop protests from reaching the seat of power. The fresh violence comes as state TV says an armed terrorist group has blown up a crucial gas pipeline. There have been several pipeline attacks since the uprising began last March, but it's not clear who is behind them.

This morning The Takeaway is exploring the importance of the Florida Primary from the perspective of the diversity of a state that has been decisive in presidential elections going back two decades. The diversity of Florida may be the first real test of the strength of the Republican message nationally whoever wins the primary.

We begin with a look at an important national constitutency who make up 10 percent of Florida Republicans: Latinos. Anna Sale has been in Florida, talking to Republican primary voters this week.

Mitt Romney appears to be pulling away from Newt Gingrich in the final day of campaigning before the Florida primary. A new NBC News-Marist poll shows the former Massachusetts governor with a 15 point lead over his closest rival. However, the surge in support isn't slowing the front runner.

Florida Voter Voices; Over 400 Occupy Oakland Protesters Arrested; This Week's Agenda: Florida Primary, Facebook IPO; $1 Million Opening Bid for Obama's Old Chrysler; The Challenge of Florida's Republican Diversity; Florida Primary; Syrian Government Cracks Down on Civilians in Damascus Suburbs; Deceptive Average Daily Balance-Based Fees; Taliban

Consisting of one-third of all military aircrafts, drones have played a major role in U.S. military operations in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Relying on a remote pilot to carry out airstrikes, drones are cheaper to build and operate than other types of aircrafts. However a new experimental drone, the X-47-B, will be entirely computer-controlled, and therefore more akin to cruise missiles.

Keven Gambold is director of operations for Unmanned Experts, a consultancy for unmanned aerial vehicles. Congressman Henry Cuellar represents the 28th district of Texas and is co-chair of the Unmanned Systems Caucus.

Along with income inequality, the president also touched on his plans to reform education in his state of the union address on Tuesday. Specifically, he mentioned how technology can make learners have more meaningful and impactful educational experiences. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic institute joins the program to gauge the feasibility and effectiveness of such innovative uses of technology at all levels of education.

After ten years of war and expanded spending, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta outlined a series of military budget cuts for the next decade totaling $487 billion. Among these cost-saving measures are limiting pay raises for troops, increasing health insurance fees for military retirees, and closing bases in the U.S. These proposed cuts would be in addition to a previously established drawdown of troops and army personnel over the next five years.

Elisabeth Bumiller is pentagon correspondent for our partner The New York Times.

Mitt Romney came prepared during last night's CNN debate in Florida. The former Massachusetts governor fending off attacks about his record and personal finances as Newt Gingrich failed to build of his late momentum. The primary in the Sunshine State is just days away. A new CNN poll shows the two frontrunners are in a dead heat, with Romney leading Gingrich 36 percent to 34 percent. The primary is less than a week away, and the stakes are high. The winner-takes-all state has 50 delegates, more than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined.

Farai Chideya is a journalist and blogger at Farai.com. Ron Christie is a Republican political strategist and political contributor for The Takeaway and our co-producer WNYC’s politics website, It’s a Free Country.

Like "Snakes on a Plane" before it "Man on a Ledge" tells you exactly what to expect out of this thriller. There's a man, of course, and he is on a ledge. But what he's doing there, how he will get off, and what happens in between? We won't spoil the plot for you but our Movie Date podcasters will put this movie in context of other "literal-title movies" and let you know if it is a good date or not. As always we hear from Rafer Guzman, film critic for Newsday, and Kristen Meinzer, culture producer for the Takeaway.

In Egypt thousands of people have converged on Cairo's Tahrir Square to mark the first anniversary of "Friday of Rage," a key day in the popular uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. A year ago Mubarak's security forces fired on protesters who streamed into the square, killing and wounding hundreds. The day ended with a collapse of Mubarak's much-hated security forces. 

A year later many are disenchanted and even angry at the ruling military, who protesters accuse of human rights abuses and of reneging on promises of reform. Joining the show is Noel King, reporter in Cairo.

Twitter has announced that they will censor communication in some countries. This has sparked concern among users as the social media platform has become vital to pro-democracy movements around the world. How will this affect normal Twitter users? Which one of your tweets might be censored? Mark Gregory, technology correspondent for our partner the BBC, tells us more.

President Obama is up in Michigan to wrap up a three-day tour to promote his economic agenda. He's at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to unveil a plan on tackling the rising costs of college and making it more affordable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she plans to step down if President Obama is re-elected in 2012. She told State Department staffers that two decades of service is enough and that she'd stay on just long enough to have a replacement named.

It's getting down to the wire in Florida, with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney neck-and-neck in the polls. The Latino vote is essential to win the Sunshine State, but it might be even more important for the general election in November. According to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, 12.2 million Latinos will vote in the 2012 presidential election, a 26 percent increase from 2008. But whether Latinos like what they've seen in the lead-up to the Florida primary remains to be seen.

Univision news anchor Jorge Ramos has spent the past few days in Miami getting to know the Republican candidates, as well as Latino voters across the country.

Late January means as many action releases as June and July. Liam Neeson returns to the big screen this weekend with the icy survival flick "The Grey." This Friday also sees "Man on a Ledge," starring Sam Worthington as a police psychologist negotiating with a pack of diamond thieves, whilst on a ledge of course. Find out which flicks are worth seeing, and which ones should wait until DVD release.

Rafer Guzman is film critic for Newsday, and co-host of the Takeaway’s Movie Date Podcast. Kristen Meinzer is culture producer for the Takeaway and also co-hosts the Movie Date podcast.

Jacksonville, Florida hosted the 19th Republican Presidential debate last night and front runners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich went straight into attack mode. Governor Romney criticized his opponents link with mortgage giant Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. At one point the bickering was so bad Rick Santorum made an appeal to just "focus on the issues."

As one of the states hardest hit by the subprime mortgage crisis, many Floridians have endured either under-employment or long-term unemployment in addition to losing their homes. Anna Sale, reporter for It’s a Free Country, the politics website of our co-producer WNYC, talks with voters in Florida about how they feel about the candidates going into the final weekend before this crucial primary.

By her own admission, Alejandrina Cabrera does not speak English very well. Yet this didn't prevent her from running for city council in San Luis, Arizona, a town where 90 percent of its resident speak Spanish. Former Mayor Guillermina Fuentes — a former friend of Cabrera's but now a political enemy — asked a court to remove her name from the ballet because of "inadequate" language skills. Cabrera subsequently failed a court-ordered English language proficiency test.

Romney Fends Off Attacks From Newt Gingrich During Last Night's Debate; A Recap of the Florida Race; Proposed Pentagon Budget Cuts for the Next Decade; New Movie Releases: 'The Grey' and 'Man on a Ledge'; Univision's Jorge Ramos on Latino Voters in the 2012 Presidential Race; Checking Where the Candidates Stand with Florida Voters; Next Generation of Drones Won't Require Operator; An English Requirement for Public Office?

This week President Obama begins his first campaign tour of the 2012 election, touring five key swing states this week: Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Michigan. The independent or undecided voters in these crucial states are what will decide the 2012 election. The Takeaway turns to two such voters to see which issues are most important to them.

Larry Reinsch is state organizer for the Independent Voters of Iowa. Dan Starr is a registered Independent from Tucson, Arizona.

The Federal Reserve announced its plan on Wednesday to keep short-term interest rates near zero through late 2014. The move signals that the Fed does not expect the economy to fully recover over the next three years. With unemployment still running high, the Fed expects the economy to expand between 2.2 and 2.7 percent over this year, instead of at 2.9 percent as originally projected.

Kelly Evans writes the “Ahead of the Tape” column for The Wall Street Journal.

Google recently announced a new privacy policy that has users and privacy advocates up in arms. Effective March 1, this new policy will consolidate information from users' various products — from Gmail to YouTube to the Android mobile phone operating system — in order to "better tailor its services" for customers. But the move could potentially violate a users' privacy simply to better target advertising. Estimates say between 50-75 percent of the world's internet users utilize at least one of Google's products.

For more about the company’s new privacy policy and what it means for users, The Takeaway is joined by Ryan Singel, editor of "Threat Level," Wired magazine’s privacy and security blog.

Google gave this statement concerning the new policy:

"This new, simpler approach will make it easier for users to understand our privacy practices, and it reflects our desire to create a simpler, more intuitive user experience across Google by integrating our different products more closely." 

You can read about the new Google privacy policy in detail here.  

On Tuesday night, the Navy's SEAL Team Six rescued a Dutch and an American aid worker who had been held by Somali pirates since October. The pirates had held the aid workers hostage in a desert hide-out since October. SEAL Team Six first came into the general public's awareness last May after leading the mission to kill Osama Bin Laden. Along with an increasing reliance on unmanned drone strikes in combat zones, the future of the U.S. military might be a smaller, more covert venture.

Ryan Zinke is a Montana state senator. Before entering politics, Senator Zinke was a Navy SEAL for 23 years.

On Wednesday, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa signed a law requiring actors in pornographic films to use condoms on-set. Many are heralding this as a major victory for the health and safety for these actors, who are ten times more likely to be infected with an STD than members of the general population. However, the porn industry — of which 80 to 90 percent is based in Los Angeles — claims this new stipulation will cost them millions in revenue.

Will Ryder is an adult film writer, director, producer, and occasional actor. He opposes the new legislation.

Millions of Americans love their Apple products: from iPods to MacBooks to iPads. But there's a story behind the beloved devices. How do they get made and what price is paid? Our partner The New York Times has been investigating and this morning's story is a riveting read, in particular the safely problems at a Chinese factory that makes iPads.

David Barboza is Shanghai correspondent for our partner The New York Times.

In late December armed police in Egypt stormed the offices of several human rights and pro-democracy NGOs across the country. One of those offices included an organization called the International Republican Institute. Egypt's military-led government has been investigating foreign-funded groups like the IRI. These non-profit groups promote democracy worldwide.

Now comes word of an escalation of that investigation. Last week, Egyptian authorities blocked the group's Cairo chief from leaving the country. The group's Cairo chief is the son of the transportation secretary, Ray LaHood. Joining the program is Lorne Craner, President of the International Republican Institute.

More than 200 people are now feared to have been killed in a series of bomb attacks and shooting sprees in northern Nigeria. The attacks are believed to be the work of the Islamist group Boko Haram. According to Human Rights Watch, the group has killed nearly 1,000 people over the past three years. Andrew Harding is a reporter with our partner the BBC. He visited the northern cities of Jos and Kano, which have both suffered heavy losses, and sent this report.

With 23 debates held thus far, the GOP candidates have conjured a great deal of applause, cheers, boos and laughter. But whether or not audience reactions are allowed is largely dependent on the commentator and arena: Brian Williams instructed the audience of this Monday's debate broadcast on NBC to refrain from clapping or any verbal reactions. On Tuesday, Newt Gingrich told "Fox & Friends" host Gretchen Carlson that he disagrees with silencing debate audiences, and threatened not to participate in future debates that prohibit reactions.

Janet Brown is executive director of the Commission on Presidential Debates. Janet has helped to set the rules for many debates over the past 25 years, including whether or not to allow audience applause and reaction.

The remaining Republican presidential candidates — Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum — will debate in Florida on Thursday evening. A new CNN poll shows the two frontrunners, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, are in a dead heat, with Romney leading Gingrich 36 percent to 34 percent. The primary is less than a week away, and the stakes are high.  The winner-takes-all state has 50 delegates — more than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina combined.  

Lenny Curry is chairman of the Florida GOP.  Phil Latzman is a reporter for WLRN The Miami Herald News.

On the campaign trail it's a two man fight for Florida. Tonight is the state's final Republican presidential debate with Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich attacking each other in recent days over personal and professional vulnerabilities. At a forum on the Spanish-language Univision broadcast yesterday Speaker Gingrich brought up the Former governor's Swiss bank account in an attempt to paint his rival as out-of-touch.

Although his father was the first candidate to release their tax returns, the impetus for Massachussetts governor Mitt Romney making his financial life public — and the rallying cry of Gingrich-boosting Super PACs — is the assertion that Romney is too rich and therefore too out of touch to be president. Throughout the decades, Americans have elected very wealthy men to the White House without any fanfare. Yet with record rates of unemployment that many are experiencing over a period of years, the issue of class in the U.S. has gained a new significance.

William Barrett is senior editor at Forbes and has written extensively about the bank accounts of the American presidents.

Pamela Haag went from being middle class to extremely wealthy six years ago after her husband struck it big in commodities, and has very distinct opinions about class in America.

The main focus of Tuesday’s State of the Union address was the economy and income inequality. Along with his ideas about taxation and protecting homeowners, president Obama also expressed a desire to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. Since the 1980s, the U.S. economy has shifted away from manufacturing and towards intellectual property and services. This has been due in part to the perceived expenses involved in production based in the U.S., as well as labor laws. 

Beri Fox is president and CEO of Marble King in West Virginia. Her company manufacturers toy marbles, decorative marbles, and those balls you hear inside your spray-paint cans.

Peter Morici is a macro-economist and professor of international business at the University of Maryland, as well as the author of several books, including "Antitrust in the Global Trading System."

The Federal Reserve says it doesn't expect to raise interest rates in the U.S. until late 2014. The surprise move sent the dollar sharply lower in markets, and caused U.S. government borrowing costs to fall. In its regular policy statement, the central bank says that it sees "significant downside risks" to the economy, and said inflation had fallen back to a level in line with its mandate.

The escalating tension between Israel and Iran over the latter's nuclear program has been at the center of many foreign policy debates and diplomatic talks over the past decade. Proponents of an Israeli strike say it's needed for to preserve Israel's national security while detractors say such an attack would precipitate World War III. 

Ronen Bergman is author of "Will Israel Attack Iran?" and a contributing writer for The Times' Magazine. He wrote the article after spending months speaking with senior Israeli leaders in the country's military and intelligence communities, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan.

The Future of the American Military; Google's New Privacy Policy Raises Many Concerns; Is It Possible to Resurrect 'Made in the USA'?; Fed. To Keep Interest Rates Near Zero; Wealth, Presidents, and Being "Out of Touch"; GOP Candidates Battle in Florida; Independent Voters on the 2012 Campaign; Will Israel Attack Iran?; Adult Actors Legally Required to Wear Condoms; The Audience's Role in a Debate

The theme of last night's State of the Union was "an economy built to last." Vowing to protect the middle class and correct economic inequality, President Obama laid out his plans for financial reform: regulating home prices, penalizing banks that participated in the housing crash, imposing the "Buffet rule," and tightening regulations on private equity and Wall Street.

Joe Nocera is an op-ed columnist for our partner The New York Times.

A number of political analysts have noted that President Obama has been far more successful in the foreign policy arena than domestically. But the President who managed to find Osama Bin Laden still faces a tough re-election battle this year. David Sanger, Chief Washington correspondent for our partner The New York Times, and contributor to WQXR's The Washington Report gives his thoughts on the foreign policy points made during last night's state of the union address.

An 80-minute movie called "The Third Jihad," produced by the Clarion Fund, asserts that a vast number of radical Islamic forces exist in the U.S. and are preparing a violent jihad against America. Last January, the NYPD revealed that this direct-to-DVD movie had been shown once during anti-terrorism officer training. But this week, following a freedom of information request, the Brennan Center for Justice revealed that the video may have been viewed by nearly 1,500 officers during training breaks as well.

NYPD deputy commissioner of public information Paul Browne joins the program to speak more about the controversy.

You can watch "The Third Jihad" below:

Politicians from both sides of the aisle took to the airwaves to attack or defend president Obama's remarks last night, setting the tone for the rest of his first term in office. But perhaps more importantly, the State of the Union informally kicked off the president's reelection campaign. This morning, The Takeaway takes a look at how his words resonated with three voters from across the country.

Alexandra Jarrin, a registered Democrat from Vermont, Jack Boyle, a registered Republican and Tea Party activist from Solon, Ohio, and Catana Barnes, president of Independent Voters of Nevada join the program to give their reactions.

With spirited rhetoric about protecting the middle class and enforcing fairness in taxation, president Obama abandoned his normally conciliatory tone about non-partisan politics during last night's State of the Union address and instead highlighted the differences between right and left. Although both parties have had the chance for rebuttal, The Takeaway has assembled their own partisan players to comment on the president's remarks.

Farai Chideya is a journalist and blogger at Farai.com. Ron Christie is a Republican political strategist and political contributor for The Takeaway and our co-producer WNYC’s politics website, It’s a Free Country.

President Obama delivered his third annual State of the Union Address last night. Obama focused primarily on income inequality. Jettisoning his normally conciliatory tone, the president instead highlighted the differences between right and left with impassioned rhetoric. Vowing to protect middle class families with mortgage assistance legislation, he also outlined his plans to institute the "Buffet rule" which would require those making over $1 billion to pay a 30 percent tax rate.

Michael Waldman is the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and former chief speechwriter for President Bill Clinton joins the program to discuss the President’s remarks.

Waldman is also the author of “My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of America's Presidents from George Washington to Barack Obama.”

Today marks the one year anniversary of the uprising in Egypt’s that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Over the past twelve months, the country has taken big steps to transition to a more democratic government. Egypt rewrote its constitution and the first freely elected parliament in more than 60 years held their first session this week. Yolande Knell, correspondent for our partner the BBC, gives us a report from the ground.

U.S. Special Forces rescued two hostages in Somalia, including one American, who were being held by pirates. The Navy Seal team was the same the killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. President Obama says the mission reasserts the United States will stand against threats to its people. Nick Childs, world affairs correspondent for our partner the BBC, joins us for an update on the situation.

In the early 1980s, a 50-year-old radiator manufacturer who'd never made a gun before was given the opportunity to make some for the Austrian army. His name was Gaston Glock, and the gun that bears his name has gained a ubiquitous presence both on-screen and in real-life crimes over the past 25 years. Made mostly of plastic and consisting fewer parts, the glock is lighter and easier to handle than other handguns — making it "amateur-friendly."

Paul Barrett is the author of a new book that looks at the history and social significance of the glock called “Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun.”

Overseas now to Somalia where two aid workers are free this morning after a raid by the U.S. military. Personnel came in on helicopters in the dark of night in the Horn of Africa. The raid freed 32-year-old American Jessica Buchanan and a 60-year-old Danish worker who were taken hostage by Somali pirates in October. 

There are increasing worries Al Qaeda is using the instability in Yemen to spread its influence. An American military operation assassinated the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki last year. One week ago militants took over the town of Radda. Stephen Sackur, with our partner the BBC, sent this report.

President Obama set out out an ambitious agenda for the American economy in his State of the Union address. The majority of the president's 90 minute speech focused on Washington gridlock and ways to combat stalemate. 

From February 10, 2007 to September 16, 2008, retired General David Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq. He was the mastermind behind the counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and served as top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan until July of 2011, when he became director of the CIA. He is arguably one of the most influential military leaders in recent American history. A new biography about General Petraeus comes out this week.

Military analyst Paula Broadwell is author of the new biography of the retired general. The book is called  "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus." She has nearly two decades working in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, and served for a decade in the U.S. military.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the uprising in Egypt that ousted President Hosni Mubarak. Over the past twelve months, the country has taken big steps to transition to a more democratic government. Egypt rewrote its constitution and the first freely elected parliament in more than 60 years held their first session this week.

But the road ahead also brings cause for concern for many. The world watched violence erupt during renewed demonstrations in Tahrir Square just last month, and thousands of Egyptian women marched to protest violence by security forces against civilians — including the beating and stripping of a female protester which was caught on camera.

Robin Wright is author of the book "Rock the Casbah: Rage and Rebellion Across the Islamic World," which examines youth and revolt in the Muslim world.  Robin is a journalist who has reported on the Middle East for major newspapers since 1973.

State of the Union Address: Obama on the Economy; Egypt: One year after the revolution; General David Petraeus's Legacy; Partisan Evaluations of Last Night's State of the Union Address; Former Clinton Speechwriter Reacts to Obama's State of the Union Address; Voters React to the State of the Union; Bloomberg speaks out against NYPD; The State of the Union's Foreign Policy Message; The Rise of the Glock

For nearly a year, Yemeni President Abdullah Saleh has harshly responded to protesters opposing his government. However, as a long-time partner in America's war on terror, the 200 casualties and 100,000 displaced demonstrators have in large part been overlooked by the U.S. government. Saleh was severely burned in an attack on the presidential palace in June, and has been granted a visa to come to the U.S. for medical treatment.

Peter Van Buren, is a former State Department Foreign Service employee and author of “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.”

Tuesday night’s state of the union address will be a prime-time assessment of the nation's policy, economy and infrastructure and a laundry list of Administration policy goals set for the future. It will also serve as the opening salvo to President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. To look at the State of the Union as prime time electioneering is Julian Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.

It's no secret that former governor and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is a wealthy man. His time at Bain Capital, a private equity company, has been used against him by his fellow GOP nominee hopefuls. Specifically, their attack ads suggest that his business practices benefit the "one percent" at the expense of the rest of the 99. But what his experience as both an expert on private equity and CEO actually means on his policies has been largely unexplored.

Romney has assets which pays him a nice tidy $45 million dollar income, $22.5 million per year. He paid about $6 million in taxes for the period and gave away about $7 million in charitable contributions including $4.1 million to the Mormon Church, of which he is a member.

His tax rate according to the released documents is 13.9 percent. Romney clearly pays his taxes but the story told in these documents is of a man who is wealthy enough to never have to work again, who's tax rate is far lower than equivalent wage earners because he's taxed at the basic capital gains 15 percent rate before any deductions.

Benjamin Wallace-Wells is contributing editor for New York Magazine.

The Republican candidates kicked off their Florida campaigns at last night's debate in Tampa. Florida is the first Republican presidential battleground with a significant Latino population, and as Mitt Romney battles Newt Gingrich for the lead in the Sunshine State, Latinos across the country are taking note. How the candidates position themselves on immigration and court the highly influential Cuban-American vote remains to be seen.

Leslie Sanchez joins us to explore the relationship between the Republican candidates and the Hispanic vote. She is the author of "Los Republicanos" and CEO of Impacto Group in Washington, DC.

This year's Oscar nominations have been announced. Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" lead the pack with 11 nominations including one for best picture. Also nominated for best picture was the silent film "The Artist"; the George Clooney film "The Descendants"; the 9/11 drama "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"; the Southern story of domestic workers "The Help"; the romantic fantasy "Midnight in Paris"; the sports blockbuster "Moneyball"; the family chronicle "The Tree of Life"; and the World War I epic "War Horse." 

Here are the Oscar-nominated and Oscar-associated actors, directors, producers, and writers we've had on The Takeaway:

Kenneth Branagh on Playing Olivier in 'My Week with Marilyn'

The Best and Worst Songs of the Seasons with Jason Segel

Harvey Weinstein on What Inspires Him

'Pina' Director Wim Wenders: What Dance Taught Him About Life

Marshall Curry: "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" 

Jonathan Safran Foer, the Author of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'

Also: Real Domestic Workers on "The Help"

A year ago President Obama announced his plans for high speed rail lines and other cutting edge transportation for the nation. But after many defeats in Congress, including the de-funding of high-speed rail, the President’s transportation initiative suddenly seems less futuristic and more focused on rebuilding the old highways of the past. 

To answer where the president stands on the eve of his re-election is Alex Goldmark, reporter for Takeaway flagship station WNYC’s Transportation Nation team. You can see his interactive chart, showcasing his research, here.

President Obama will deliver his State of the Union address tonight as the campaign to replace him ramps up in Florida. Aides say the president will focus on economic issues from raising taxes on the wealthy to making college more affordable. After the speech, the president heads off on a three day swing through battleground states Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, and Michigan.

On Monday the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that police violated the 4th amendment when they placed a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device on a suspect’s car and monitored its movements for 28 days. In his opinion on the case, Justice Anthony Scalia wrote that the use of GPS constituted a "search" and therefore requires a warrant. This ruling may have an impact on other cases where GPS was used, as well as other types of surveillance mechanisms.

Jeffrey Rosen is a professor of law at George Washington University.  Attorney Marc Rotenberg is director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC.

Most college students don’t find much time in between classes, studying, and planning their own futures to solve major problems in their local communities. But when Harrisburg, Pennsylvania found itself on the brink of bankruptcy, a college student saved the day. The 23-year-old John Campbell is also the city’s treasurer. He was elected to the post on January 3 and has a step-by-step plan to save the state capital from financial collapse.

John Campbell joins the program to talk about his decision to run for office, and his plans to fix the city's financial problems.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney senses the worst may be over for him and goes after a confident Newt Gingrich looking for another come-from-behind victory in the Florida Primary. Also, Romney bowing to pressure, has released two years of tax returns. Reviews of his 2010 return show Romney paying nearly $3 million in federal taxes on $ 21.7 million of income. That's a tax rate of just under 14 percent

Last night the University of South Florida hosted a GOP presidential debate, the first of two scheduled in Florida leading up to the state's January 31 primary. The crowd was silenced by a no-applause policy which seems to have muted the effect of Newt Gingrich, who in the past has received accolades from the audience after partisan broadsides. The debate sets the agenda for the next week as candidates prepare for a primary which may ultimately decide the nominee to challenge President Obama in November.

Todd Zwillich, The Takeaway’s Washington correspondent joins the program along with Sergio Bustos, state politics editor at The Miami Herald.

Recapping Last Night's Florida GOP Debate; President of Yemen Approved for US Medical Visa; The 23-Year-Old City Treasurer; Can Republicans Win the Latino Vote?; Supreme Court Rules that GPS Counts as a 'Search'; The President's Transportation Transformation; Romney Reveals His Tax Returns; Obama's State of the Campaign Address

Monday marks the beginning of 4709 in the Chinese calendar, the "Year of the Dragon". A strong, fiery, and auspicious cultural symbol, the lunar year ahead holds the potential for seismic change. In addition to the generational transitions set for its government, military, and the Communist Party, some experts are claiming 2012 will be the year China's economy collapses.

Sheryl WuDunn, author of "China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power." She and her husband, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, also co-authored the book, "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide."

Joe Paterno, the most successful coach in major college football history, the face of Penn State University, and at one point, among the most admired figures in the entire sporting world, is dead at the age of 85. News of Paterno’s death from lung cancer came early Sunday morning. At the center of one of the worst scandals to ever hit the sports world, what JoePa's legacy will be, once the dust clears, is up to more people than just Lions fans.

Ibrahim Abdul Matin, Takeaway Sports Contributor talks about the life, death, and legacy of Joe Paterno.

Also joining the program is Michael Weinreb, staff writer for Grantland and a native of State College, Pennsylvania. Michael has written a number of essays on Penn State amidst the abuse scandal and those can be found at Grantland.com. 

Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle posted a video on her website Sunday that reveals she will be resigning from office this week. This announcement comes after her first public appearance in Tuscon on the one-year anniversary of the shooting spree that killed six people and left her in critical condition. What side of the aisle her highly competitive seat will go to after the upcoming special election is unclear.

Buzz Conover, senior political reporter at KUAT, Tucson's public radio outlet, joins the program.

While political mud-slinging is de riguer in primary races, 2012 has brought several not-so-thinly-veiled anti-Muslim soundbytes from its frontrunning candidates. Last week, Newt Gingrich said that he would not support a Muslim president unless they would "commit in public to giv[ing] up Sharia." Rick Santorum also expressed his thoughts on Islam, saying that the concept of equality "doesn’t come from Islam" or "Eastern Religions." Instead, he said, "it comes from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

Nezar Hamze is executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in South Florida, and is a Republican. Hussein Rashid is professor of religion at Hofstra University.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich has had a long political career. But along the way, as Mitt Romney's SuperPAC Restore our Future gleefully points out, he accrued 84 ethics complaints during his tenure in the House, and accepted a $1.6 million donation from Freddie Mac. But that's not the whole list of Gingrich's malfeasance, public or personal. The Takeaway looks back at the triumphs — and scandals — that have trailed him.

On Saturday, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pulled in 40 percent of the 600,000 primary votes in South Carolina in what has been called the largest Republican primary in history. Significantly, nearly two-thirds of these voters were evangelical or born-again Christians. This win comes in the wake of news that Mitt Romney did not in fact win the Iowa caucuses, and means that there has been no consistent candidate across these three key tests of presidential mettle. 

Anna Sale, reporter for It’s a Free Country, the politics website for our co-producer WNYC, gives her thoughts on what Gingrich's win means for the rest of the GOP race. Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to Newt Gingrich, also joins the program.

Over the past ten months, Syrian Security Forces have killed more than 5,000 protestors across the country. But this weekend, two key voices announced their calls to action: the Arab League will seek U.N. Security Council approval to peacefully end the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer introduced a bill that would block financial aid and create trade sanctions against Syrian leaders involved in the crackdown.

Borzou Daragahi, Middle East correspondent for The Financial Times, and Joshua Landis, co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and author of the blog Syria Comment, join the program.