WAMU-FM: WAMU: The Diane Rehm Show Podcast

Award-winning writer Mark Brazaitis talks with Diane about his latest collection of short stories.

Dozens of Bangladesh workers making clothes for the U.S. market were killed in a factory fire last month. Debate over the safety of apparel makers and what can be done to improve conditions.

International wildlife trafficking has long been considered a critical conservation issue. Now the U.S. State Department has made it a foreign policy priority as well. Wildlife trafficking increasingly threatens the security, national health and economies of many countries. Poaching operations have become more large scale, sophisticated and organized. The black market in wildlife is second only to trade in drugs and arms. It's a likely source of funding for transnational criminal networks, possibly even terrorist groups. Meanwhile demand has grown for furs, tusks, bones, horns and other illegal animal goods. Robert Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment, updates us on new efforts to raise awareness about conservation and stop illegal wildlife trafficking.

President Barack Obama seems to be, so far, holding firm on his campaign pledge to raise tax rates for those with taxable income above $250,000, but he has also not ruled out reducing or eliminating longstanding tax breaks including the mortgage interest deduction. It's been in effect for almost a century, and now costs about $100 billion a year in lost tax revenues. For many upper income tax payers, its benefit is clear, and it's also believed to encourage home ownership. Please join us to discuss who the mortgage interest deduction helps, who it hurts and what would change if the rules were modified.

Landline phone use is plummeting. The telecom industry argues it should no longer be required to provide the service. Consumer groups disagree. The future of the landline.

Protesters clash in Egypt. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads a new diplomatic effort on Syria. And new details on the Bangladesh factory fire. James Kitfield of National Journal, Nadia Bilbassy of MBC and Matt Frei of the UK Channel 4 discuss the week's top international stories, what happened and why.

The November jobs number report. What's new in the fiscal cliff negotiations. And former President George W. Bush weighs in on immigration. Shawna Thomas of NBC, Naftali Bendavid of The Wall Street Journal and Lori Montgomery of The Washington Post join Diane to talk about the week's top national stories, what happened and why.

Lady Bird Johnson chronicled her life in a series of interviews spanning almost 20 years. Oral historian Michael Gillette recounts his interviews with the former first lady, and we hear her firsthand account of life and marriage with President Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Landline phone use is plummeting. The telecom industry argues it should no longer be required to provide the service. Consumer groups disagree. The future of the landline.

Landline phone use is plummeting. The telecom industry argues it should no longer be required to provide the service. Consumer groups disagree. The future of the landline.

The age of passwords is over. That's the claim made in this month's "Wired" magazine. Most of us trust that a string of letters, numbers and characters is enough to protect our bank accounts, email and credit cards. But hackers are breaking into computer systems and hosts of user names and passwords on the Web with increasing regularity. And because so much of our personal information is stored in the cloud, hackers can trick customer service agents into resetting passwords. Some Internet companies say the trade-offs — convenience and privacy — are necessary to protect our data. Privacy advocates say that price is too high. Diane and her guests discuss the illusion of online security and whether you can make your accounts harder to crack.

Americans are relying on what we used to call food stamps in unprecedented numbers. According to figures released in September, more than 46 million Americans, about one in seven, are getting government assistance for food, but it's estimated that millions more struggle with hunger. The nation's food banks, supported by private dollars and donations, are straining to fill the gap. Federal funding for food stamps is not on the line in the current tax and spending negotiations, but some believe new limits on government food assistance programs are needed. Please join us to discuss hunger in America and what we can do about it.

Forests cover more than 30 percent of the world's land surface. They are home to a variety of living organisms, but much of what happens in the woods is a mystery to humans. Inspired by the mandalas of Tibetan monks, biologist David Haskell set out to better understand forest ecology: he visited the same spot in the Tennessee forest every day for a year. His days were spent quietly listening and observing. What he found was a thriving biological world of plants, animals and insects, all bound together by a shared ecosystem. On this month's Environmental Outlook: "The Forest Unseen."

In the shadow of negotiations over the so-called fiscal cliff, another deadline looms in Washington. States have until December fourteenth to decide whether they intend to create state-based health insurance markets. If states choose not to build their own or partner with others, then the federal government will step in. As states rush to create exchanges by 2014, they're considering how best to develop health care comparison tools. Individuals and small businesses need ways to plan for unexpected expenses, find out which plans include their provider, and compare service quality. Diane and her guests talk about building customer-friendly health insurance exchanges.

Charles Dickens is one of the world's greatest and best-loved novelists. He created such indelible child characters as Oliver Twist, Little Nell, Tiny Tim and David Copperfield. Dickens endured a difficult childhood. When he was 11, his father was sent to debtors' prison, and Dickens was put to work in a blackening factory. Beginning in his teens, his talent, energy and drive ensured he would never suffer such disgrace again. Dickens also had great expectations for his 10 children — seven boys and three girls. Author Robert Gottlieb tells us what became of the sons and daughters of Charles Dickens.