On Point with Tom Ashbrook | Podcasts

Marilyn Monroe and Nikita Khrushchev. Mark Twain and Helen Keller. Unexpected encounters of the famous and infamous.

Furor after Missouri GOP Senate candidate Todd Akin talks of "legitimate rape." And the roots of that remark.

Has posting updates online of our dinners out, our work promotions, our vacations turned us into a nation of braggarts?

Talk again of an Israeli strike against Iran, the US pulled in quick and a big October surprise in campaign season. We'll ask what's bluster and what's real.

Paul Ryan shakes the race. Candidates cry foul. Young immigrants get a break. There's a new galaxy on the map. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Black widows, orb weavers, the brown recluse. We go to the amazing world of spiders.

Paul Ryan's plan for Medicare. We'll look at truth and consequences, on and off the Ryan plan.

Going "Glocal." We'll look at local economies stepping up in an era of globalization.

Could devastating mega-droughts - some lasting decades - be the new normal in big parts of the United States? We'll look at the forecast.

Ziggy Stardust, high persona, and a new biography of David Bowie.

Mitt Romney names Wisconsin's Paul Ryan as his VP running mate. We'll look at the Ryan factor.

Truth and campaigning. A temple shooting. Cheers for a landing on Mars.

Remembering one singular sensation, Marvin Hamlisch. From "The Sting" to "A Chorus Line," how did he come up with all that music?

Mitt Romney and the VP pick. After Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, we look at how Vice Presidents matter.

New Yorker writer and surgeon Atul Gawande on why a chain restaurant--the Cheesecake Factory-- might be the new model for healthcare.