Dirty Bomb Arrest

Police in Slovakia are saying that the radio-active material they seized yesterday is enriched uranium, the kind that can be used to make a “dirty bomb.” Authorities are holding three men, saying they were on their way to sell the nuclear material. We’ll have the latest from Yan Lopatka, senior correspondent for Reuters News in Prague.

Memory

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Why do we remember and why do we forget? To find out we speak with Daniel Schacter, professor of psychology at Harvard University. Professor Schacter is featured in an article about the science of memory in this month’s National Geographic.

Veteran’s Care

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A new report shows the Department of Veterans Affairs is taking longer than ever to process disability claims. Its backlog of cases is growing and the time the agency allows workers to process an appeal has nearly doubled to 675 days. That means a veteran who initially gets turned down for disability payments could wait years to have the case appealed. Our guest is Chris Adams, investigative reporter for McClatchy Newspapers in Washington.

Archaeological Playing Cards for the Military

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Troops in Iraq recently got a new deck of playing cards. Instead of showing the most wanted members of Saddam Hussein’s regime from the U.S. invasion in 2003, these cards display images of historical and archaeological sites. Troops in Agfhanistan got a similar deck. The cards are part of a larger effort by the Defense Department to raise cultural awareness. We speak with James Zeidler, senior research scientist at the Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands at Colorado State University, who worked with a graphic designer to create the cards.

Rick Moody

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Author Rick Moody has chronicled suburban ennui in his book, “The Ice Storm.” In his new collection of novellas, “Right Livelihoods,” Moody explores even bleaker landscapes. His story, “The Albertine Notes”, is set in New York City after a cataclysmic bomb blast kills four million people. The desperate survivors search for Albertine, the drug that allows them to perfectly recall memories of what was lost, but at a price.