Friday, May 10, 2002

Newsmaker: King Abdullah
Jim Lehrer interviews King Abdullah of Jordan for an Arab leader's perspective on the Middle East crisis.

Damage Assessment
Ray Suarez reports on the sentencing of convicted spy Robert Hanssen. For more on the impact of the Hanssen case, Suarez talks to Elaine Shannon, law enforcement and national security correspondent for Time magazine, and Susan Rosenfeld, former FBI historian.

In Tune With The Times
Paul Solman explores a connection between Broadway's Tony nominations and Enron's market manipulation in the California energy crisis.

Shields and Brooks
Terence Smith moderates this week's political commentary from syndicated columnist Mark Shields and David Brooks of The Weekly Standard.

Essay: Mother's Day
Anne Taylor Fleming considers what will be different about this year's Mother's Day.

Thursday, May 9, 2002

Newsmaker: Tom Ridge
Jim Lehrer talks with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge about the upcoming deadline to present the White House with a comprehensive homeland defense plan.

Young Victims
Special correspondent Jonathan Silvers reports on the problem of children and AIDS in the southern African nation of Zambia.

Bench Battle
Kwame Holman reports on the process of confirming judicial appointments. For more on this, Ray Suarez talks to two key members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Public Intellectuals
Margaret Warner talks to author Richard Posner about his new book Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline.

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

Newsmaker: Jack Straw
Jim Lehrer talks with British Foreign Minister Jack Straw about the Middle East conflict and other issues.

Food Fight
Kwame Holman reports on the farm bill approved by the Senate today. For more on this new legislation and President Bush's pledge to sign it, Gwen Ifill leads a discussion with Gebe Martinez, staff writer for CQ Weekly and Robert Young, co-director of the non-partisan Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri.

Right to Bear Arms
Ray Suarez discusses the debate over widening individuals' rights to own guns with Robert Cottrol, professor of law at George Washington University; Jack Rakove, professor of history and American studies at Stanford University; Saul Cornell, professor of history at Ohio State University; and Joyce Malcolm, professor of history at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Tuesday, May 7, 2002

Mideast Agendas
Spencer Michels reports on Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's meeting with President Bush in Washington and a deadly suicide bombing attack. For more analysis on the latest developments in the Middle East, Jim Lehrer talks with Todd Purdum, chief diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times; Hisham Melhem, Washington correspondent for the Beirut newspaper As-Safir; and David Makovsky, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Bomb Scare
Gwen Ifill takes a closer look at the pipe bomb scare escalating in the Midwest. For more, Ifill is joined by Clint van Zandt, a former FBI special agent and supervisor for the behavioral science unit at the FBI Academy.

Coastal Watchdog
Jeffrey Kaye of KCET in Los Angeles looks at the role of the post-9/11 U.S. Coast Guard.

Pulitzer Prize Winner: Fiction
Elizabeth Farnsworth interviews Richard Russo, who won this year's Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his novel, Empire Falls.

Monday, May 6, 2002

Free Again
Ray Suarez reports on Burma's decision to free Nobel Laureate and political dissident Aung San Suu Kyi. For analysis, Suarez is joined by Mike Jendrzejczyk, Washington director of Human Rights Watch Asia, and Thomas Vallely, political analyst in the Asia program at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Writing Old Wrongs
Terence Smith reports on a Mississippi newspaper's efforts to reopen chapters of civil rights history as a former Klansman goes to trial in Birmingham for a 1963 church bombing.

Tom's Journal
Jim Lehrer talks to New York Times foreign affairs columnist Tom Friedman about his recent travels in the Middle East and Indonesia.

Essay: Poverty's Children
Essayist Clarence Page of The Chicago Tribune considers the changing face of poverty.