Government & Politics

Adrian Raine argues that violent behavior has biological roots just like depression or schizophrenia. This raises questions about treatment, accountability and punishment, including the death penalty.

The New York Times reporter talks about spending much of the past year with rebels in Syria. Chivers is also the author of The Gun, about how the AK-47 has defined modern warfare.

A new six-episode drama for the Sundance Channel follows a man who, after 19 years in prison, is exonerated by DNA evidence and returns to his family. Critic David Bianculli says it's a unique show, and a memorable one.

In a new documentary premiering on HBO, the journalist explores the life of his friend, the war photographer Tim Hetherington. The two collaborated on the 2010 documentary Restrepo, and Junger was profoundly changed after Hetherington was killed by shrapnel in Libya in 2011.

In a cover story for The New Republic, journalist Jonathan Cohn examines the conundrum of day care in the United States. "On the one hand," he says, "improving the quality of child care ... is going to take more money. On the other hand, it already costs more than many families can pay."

In 2003, a hospital nurse named Charlie Cullen was arrested under suspicion of injecting patients with lethal doses of a variety of medications. He is now considered one of the nation's most prolific serial killers. Journalist Charles Graeber explains how the hospital system failed to stop Cullen.

The CIA has morphed from a traditional espionage service concerned with stealing the secrets of foreign governments into an organization consumed with hunting down its enemies. New York Times journalist Mark Mazzetti chronicles this transformation in a new book, The Way of the Knife.

In a new book, Washington Post economics writer Neil Irwin looks at an elite group of policymakers from around the word who manage the money supply, and explains how money can come from -- and disappear into -- thin air based on the decisions of these influential men and women.

As Deputy Director of President George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, Kuo hoped to be a force inside the White House advocating for the poor. He left after two years, disillusioned and believing he had been used solely to recruit evangelical voters. Kuo, who died Friday at 44, talked to Fresh Air in 2006.

The writer's family was living in Egypt, in exile from Libya, when Matar's father, a prominent opponent of the Qaddafi regime, was kidnapped, taken back to Libya, and imprisoned. That was in March 1990, and it was the last time Matar saw his father. After the revolution in March 2012, Matar returned to look for his father or at least try to find out what became of him.

Anthony Lewis, the New York Times columnist and reporter who covered the Supreme Court in the late 1950s and early 1960s, died Monday. Fresh Air remembers him by listening back to a 1991 interview in which Lewis talks about the responsibilities of a columnist and the importance of a correctly-spelled name.

David Mamet, the writer and director of the new HBO movie Phil Spector starring Al Pacino and Helen Mirren, includes a disclaimer at the beginning of the film: While the movie might be based on the controversial music producer, "This is a work of fiction. It's not 'based on a true story.'

On the 10-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, journalist Aaron Glantz talks about the challenges American service members face in accessing disability and other benefits. Glantz says there is a backlog of 900,000 claims and that the average waiting period is 273 days.

In a profile of Ginsburg for this week's New Yorker, Jeffrey Toobin describes how the incremental philosophy of litigation that helped her win many precedent-setting women's rights cases as a lawyer is reflected in her career as a Supreme Court justice.

On the HBO series Enlightened, a naive corporate executive played by Laura Dern wants to change the world. The series' creator and writer, Mike White, says the show's whistle-blowing plot line was inspired, in part, by his own father's experience.

Director Dror Moreh interviews six former heads of Israel's Shin Bet security service in his Oscar-nominated documentary. The men look back on their work and conclude that continued Israeli occupation of the Palestinians will not resolve the conflict.

Kevin Cullen and Shelley Murphy, who covered Bulger for years for The Boston Globe, have a new book about the career criminal. Burger was wanted of 19 murders when was captured by the FBI in 2011. He faces trial in June.

In a new book, the CNN anchor tells the story of Combat Outpost Keating. The ill-fated American military base was in a remote Afghan valley, and on Oct. 3 , 2009, it became the site of one of the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops in the history of the war in Afghanistan.

Scott Shane, a national security correspondent for The New York Times, speaks with Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the drone-related stories he has helped break, including the revelation that President Obama personally approves targeted strikes against suspected terror suspects.