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2: Former Congressman TIMOTHY J. PENNY was in Congress for twelve years. He's just written a new book about the cultures that modern lawmakers bring to Congress which he says "have gnawed away at the sturdy foundations of republican democracy and trustworthy service that our Founding Fathers bequeathed." PENNY's new book is Common Cents (Little, Brown & Co.) which he wrote with journalist Major Garrett. PENNY is now spokesperson for the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan coalition that promotes fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction.

Writer YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI is a senior writer for "The Jerusalem Report." He's the author of Memoirs of A Jewish Extremist: An American Story, (Little, Brown) which tells the story of his involvement with Jewish right-wing movements in the United States, and with the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. HALEVI eventually broke away from the movement

Early this morning, police shot a man they say pointed a gun at an officer. This, four days after the killing of an unarmed teenager.

A bill legalizing physician-assisted suicide has been approved by the California state legislature, and now awaits the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown.

Frank Browning reports on the number two cancer killer in America -- colon cancer. More than 45-thousand Americans die from it every year. A study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association confirms that screening people over 50 for colorectal cancer saves lives. Malignancies are detected earlier, at a more treatable stage. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health and several private groups have launched an aggressive colon cancer prevention campaign. But it's been difficult to get people over 50 to get tested.

Researchers from Yale and Brown Universities report in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that they have measured the actual brain volume of children who were born prematurely, using M.R.I. scans once the children reached eight years of age. They found that the earlier the premature birth, the more insult to the brain, resulting in a related decrease in I.Q. test scores. It's a first step towards quantifying how much delayed brain development affects intelligence. NPR's Michelle Trudeau has the story.

He responds to concerns about conflict of interest in awarding military contracts to private companies. Pawlik explains how the Army Corps of Engineers gave contracts to put out oil fires in Iraq to Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton. Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Secretary of Defense, was the CEO of Halliburton before he became vice president.

Good Morning Midnight tells the story of renowned mountain climber Guy Waterman, who committed suicide atop New Hampshire's Mt. Lafayette. Waterman became passionate about the outdoors after leaving an unhappy marriage and abandoning his career as a Republican speechwriter. Host Melissa Block talks with author Chip Brown.

NPR's Ina Jaffe talks with Linda about the closing arguments offered today in the OJ Simpson civil trial. The jury in the case will hear at least two days of arguments offered from the lawyers for both the plaintiffs in the case...the families of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson...and the defense. Lawyer Daniel Petrocelli, representing the families, said today that Simpson is a liar wwho refuses to take responsibility for his own actions. Lawyers for Mr. Simpson will be allowed a final response just before the jury heads into its deliberations.

2: Film maker JACK HILL. He's best known for his blaxploitation films, "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown" which he both wrote and directed. He was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola and during the 60s he and Coppola worked for the master of the exploitation films, Roger Corman. HILL worked on the last of Boris Karloff's films. His 1975 film "Switchblade Sister" is now being re-released under the aegis of Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Films.