WAMU-FM: WAMU: The Diane Rehm Show Podcast

Audio books have come full circle. Once just for the blind, books on cassette and then CD first became available to the general public three decades ago, mostly in libraries or by subscription. Soon they popped up in bookstores, taking up a shelf or two. By the late '90s, big box stores featured whole walls of audio books. Now, in the age of digital downloads, book shelves are sparse once more. But the industry is thriving — it's currently estimated to be worth $1.2 billion. Many love the convenie...

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators announces an immigration reform plan. President Barack Obama is expected to lay out his own proposal on Tuesday. Diane and her guests discuss pathways to citizenship, border security and other key immigration issues.

When President Obama took office in 2009, he was faced with the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The president, his economic team and the Federal Reserve took actions that many credit with helping stave off a global financial meltdown. But the causes of the near-collapse and what was done to solve it remain poorly understood by many who lived through it. In a new book, a leading U.S. economist explains what happened and why. And he warns that more needs to be done to reduce the chance...

Virginia Governor Bob Mcdonnell has come out against a state senate proposal on the Electoral College. It would have shifted Virginia from a winner take all system to one with votes based on congressional district results. However, another Virginia GOP plan, one to redraw the state's congressional districts lines is still on the table. It's move that would shore up their party's strength in the state. Changing district lines to favor the party in power is not a new idea, but in recent years it's b...

Conservatives lose ground in Israeli elections. The U.S. provides support to France in Mali. And Britain's prime minister promises an EU membership vote. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top international news stories.

The Pentagon lifts the ban on combat roles for women. Secretary Clinton testifies before Congress on the Benghazi attack. And the House passes a short term debt ceiling extension. A panel of journalists joins Diane for analysis of the week's top domestic news stories.

The United States spends $2.5 trillion on health care, accounting for more than 16 percent of our gross domestic product. But more spending has not translated into better results: the U.S. consistently ranks below other countries on delivering quality health care. A major culprit in rising costs is medical testing, which totals $250 billion extra every year. In a new book, two Harvard doctors say physicians rely too much on algorithms and formulas to make a diagnosis, leading them to order unnecessary...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's testimony on Benghazi, Libya, and understanding security risks in North and West Africa.

U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey was born in Mississippi, 100 years to the day after Confederate Memorial Day was established. Her mother was black, her father is white. Their marriage was against the law in the state. Her poetry explores the interplay of race and memory in her life and in American history. The past she mines is often unsettling: growing up biracial in the deep south of the 1960s, the lives of forgotten African-American Civil War soldiers, her mother's murder and the legacy of sl...

As part of our Mind and Body series: More than five million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, but efforts to find new treatments for the disease have been disappointing. The ongoing battle against Alzheimer's disease.