FRESH AIR
Journalist Jane Mayer expects that an upcoming Supreme Court case will force the Obama administration to clarify its policy towards fighting terrorism — and to define its stance on preventative detention of suspected terrorists. In her article, “The Hard Cases”, which appears in the Feb. 23 issue of The New Yorker, Mayer details the case of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, an alleged Al Qaeda sleeper agent who has been held for more than five years in an isolation brig, despite the fact that he never stood trial or was convicted of a crime. Though Marri was seized and detained under the Bush administration, it is the Obama administration that must reply to his legal challenge. And, says Mayer, the new administration’s legal response to Marri will be a defining moment, both for the president and for the hundreds of other “unlawful enemy combatants” currently being held in Guantanamo 
Bay, Cuba. Mayer has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since March 1995. She is the author of The Dark Side.
RADIO TIMES
Michael Phelps, Olympic gold medallist, will not face charges after a photograph showed him using a marijuana pipe. His case raises the question of the ambivalent relationship our country has with this drug. Our guests are RICHARD BONNIE, Director of the Institute of Law, Psychiatry and Public Policy at the University of Virginia Schools of Law and Medicine and MARINA GOLDMAN, Research Instructor at the Addiction Treatment Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies how marijuana effects the brain. Listen to the mp3
THIS AMERICAN LIFE
374: Somewhere Out There
Of all the 6 and a half billion people in the world, what are the odds that any two people are a real match? Stories from people who know they’ve beat the odds, and the lengths they’ve gone to do it—including an American professor who sings Chinese opera for anyone who’ll listen, to get one step closer to his mate, and two kids who travel halfway around the country to find each other and become best friends.
THE WORLD CAFE
Over the course of its long and celebrated career, The Cure has released thirteen studio albums and over thirty singles. Their recent, and long-anticipated release, 4:13 Dream, has yet again united all Cure fans under the pop power of Robert Smith’s crying vocals. With a renewed rock edge driven by original guitarist Porl Thomson, and signature keyboards and synths pushed to the background, the raw energy of 4:13 Dream is infectious. The reassembled band performs material from the new album — plus a couple classic Cure songs — in a session with host David Dye.
THE CURE: The Catepillar