KCRW's To the Point

Common Core was invented by 45 state governors to raise educational standards for math and reading while maintaining local control. But, when Washington stepped in with monetary incentives, red-state conservatives saw federal control and denounced Common Core as ?Obamacore.?

A federal judge is taking a big chance with an 18-year old Somali American, accused of trying to join ISIS in Syria. Instead of waiting in jail for trial as a terrorist conspirator, he may be sent to a halfway house to be counseled about re-connecting with American society. Is he already a danger here in this country?

Have you been to a marijuana dispensary? How about a gun show, an abortion clinic?or the home of somebody you?re not married to? Federal, state and local police may well have a visual record?picked up during blanket surveillance of automobile license plates.

Local district attorneys get re-elected for putting people in jail. Now some prosecutors are part of a movement to get some inmates out. It?s not just new evidence or witnesses changing their stories?it?s also the pressure on innocent people to plead guilty.

In his State of the Union message, the President bragged about record economic growth and said, "middle class economics works." But average American incomes haven't gone up significantly since 1973 ? and Republican politicians have noticed. Will they try to steal the issue from Democrats in the presidential campaign?

ISIS may be a looming danger in the Middle East, but US intelligence officials say the greater threat to US security is al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ? located in Yemen.  Now that the government there has collapsed, are the President's drone strikes keeping American safer or increasing the risk?

Negotiations over Iran?s nuclear program involve seven nations, with domestic politics in Iran and the US inevitably driving the agenda.  Now Israel has been added to the equation ? in the middle of an election campaign.  What are the prospects for reaching agreement?

Fifteen years after measles was declared eradicated in the United States, more than 70 people have come down with the disease ? an outbreak that started at Disneyland. It's not enough cases to be a real epidemic. But public health officials are warning that too many people are refusing the vaccination that once eliminated a highly contagious, potentially deadly, disease.

Republican dominance on Capitol Hill has been welcomed by the right-to-life movement. But today, a dispute between moderates and conservatives led House leaders to pull a bill restricting late-term abortions. What's the message about majority party leadership ? on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade?

Speaking last night to a Congress controlled by Republicans, President Obama sounded to some as if the Democrats won last November?s elections. He proposed legislation and issued veto threats. Can he dominate the agenda for the next two years?

Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have been held for years without any charges; half the remaining inmates have been cleared for release; military prosecutors have resigned in frustration. But, after six years in office, America's Commander in Chief has not been able to shut it down.

The mass of conflicting evidence released by prosecutors fed heated arguments about how and why Officer Darren Wilson killed Michael Brown last August in Ferguson, Missouri. That has sparked a broader debate about equal access to justice for black Americans. On this Martin Luther King Day, we are re-broadcasting a discussion that first aired on November 26.

America's top mortgage salesman says it's finally time for millennials to buy new homes. But his own daughter's not buying it. Their family argument illustrates what's good about President Obama's planned boost for the housing market and what's not.

Yesterday, conservative House Republicans denounced the President for being too lenient with undocumented immigrants. Today, moderate members attacked him for too many deportations. Can the GOP get its act together in time to show unity during next year's presidential campaigns?

Al Qaeda in Yemen now claims it ordered the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Should the western media be paying more attention to atrocities in that country ? and to Nigeria, where civilians are being slaughtered by the thousands?