Hour 1 The Obama administration recently rejected the hotly contested proposal to build a 1,700-mile pipeline from Western Canada to Texas. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 800,000 barrels of oil from the tar sands in Alberta across to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. President Obama said that his administration denied the permit because [...]

Filed under: business, economy, environment, politics, technology, transportation, world |

Hour 2 SUZZY ROCHE and her sisters, Maggie and Terre, have been touring together and recording for over 30 years. Suzzy, the youngest, has written her first novel, "Wayward Saints," about the music industry, family and small-town ghosts of the past. We’ll talk to Roche about performing, writing in a different medium for the first [...]

Filed under: arts, author, culture, entertainment, family issues, music |

Hour 1 They've been called everything from clowns to liars to hypocrites. We're talking about the contenders for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, a cast of characters that seems to pit the party establishment against the Tea Party movement.  What does the current crop of candidates say about the Republican Party, its electorate, and their [...]

Filed under: history, media, politics |

Hour 2 How do you tell the story of the infamous trial of the Scottsboro Boys in fierce, minstrel form? The last collaboration of  John Kander and Fred Ebb, the legendary musical theater team behind Chicago and Cabaret, was the 2010 Broadway production of The Scottsboro Boys, which was nominated for 12 Tony Awards. The [...]

Filed under: arts, culture, entertainment, history, music, social issues |

Hour 1 Following two days of public viewings attended by students, alumni, sports icons, government officials, dignitaries and fans, former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno was buried on Wednesday. His death on January 22 came just two months after the University's trustees dismissed him as head coach amid criticism that he failed to respond [...]

Filed under: author, history, journalism, sports |

Hour 2 Mayor Nutter recently turned a few heads after he used some choice words when responding to the senseless murder of three Philadelphia teenagers.  The award-winning ABC sitcom Modern Family also found itself in a little bit of hot water thanks to an F-bomb dropped by a toddler.  Meanwhile the Supreme Court has begun [...]

Filed under: author, business, culture, entertainment, family issues, history, media, parenting, politics, psychology, social issues |

Hour 1 While Mitt Romney’s federal income tax return may have been shocking in terms of the sheer volume of his wealth, everything about it was perfectly legal. He reported income in 2010 of over $21.6 million, nearly all of it from interest, dividends and capital gains, which are taxed at lower rates than what [...]

Filed under: economy, journalism, politics |

Hour 2 Philadelphia artist ZOE STRAUSS pays attention to the joy and the pain that comes with the city’s neighborhoods – the poverty, substance addiction, segregation and cultural diversity – and captures scenes many of us would never notice. Strauss was known in the art world the last decade for her annual one-day shows featuring [...]

Filed under: Philadelphia, arts, culture, history, military, world |

Hour 1 All eyes and ears were on Capitol Hill last night as President Barack Obama delivered his third State of the Union address.  Before a packed house of Congress, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, and special guests,  he laid out his vision for the coming year focusing mostly on economic initiatives which he described [...]

Filed under: economy, politics, world |

Hour 2 Pennsylvania's Geisinger Health System recently announced that starting in February it would no longer hire smokers and will screen for nicotine use among new employees. Pennsylvania is one of 20 states that allow bans on hiring smokers. Around the country more and more organizations, particularly hospitals, are embracing non-nicotine hiring policies as a [...]

Filed under: health, medicine, military, politics, social issues, work |