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Available for viewing online. In the mid-1960s, Bernard Madoff tapped money from Jewish businessmen at exclusive country clubs with the promise of steady guaranteed returns on their investments. He then set his sights on Europe and Latin America, brokering deals with powerful hedge fund managers and feeder funds from Buenos Aires to Geneva. Billions of dollars were channeled to Madoff's investment firm, and his feeders became fabulously wealthy. The competition wondered how the man could produce such steady returns in good times and bad. There were allegations that Madoff was "front-running" or operating a Ponzi scheme, which the SEC investigated several times over the last two decades. But Madoff remained untouched until Dec. 11, 2008, when he admitted it was all "one big lie." FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria unravel the story behind the world's first truly global Ponzi scheme -- a deception that lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any other business scandal in history.

Available for viewing online. This year, hundreds of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illnesses will be released into communities across America, the largest exodus in the nation's history. Typically, mentally ill offenders leave prison with a bus ticket, $75 and two weeks worth of medication. Within eighteen months, nearly two-thirds are re-arrested. In this follow up to the groundbreaking film The New Asylums, FRONTLINE examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates. The intimate stories of the released -- along with interviews with parole officers, social workers, and psychiatrists -- provide a rare look at the lives of the mentally ill as they struggle to stay out of prison and reintegrate into society.

Available for viewing online. More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America's waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways -- the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay -- are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species is also threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and the states set new agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why its so hard to keep our waters clean.

(60 minutes) The bets were huge and risky -- billions of dollars on the housing market. The upside was undeniable -- superbanks reaped billions of dollars, dominated the landscape, and gobbled up competitors. Then the bottom dropped out -- the massive losses on Wall Street nearly broke the banks. In the worst crisis in decades, brand name banks are on the brink. Now as the federal government implements an unprecedented intervention in the industry, FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors to tell the inside story of how things went so wrong so fast and to document efforts to stabilize Wall Street. Veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk (Inside the Meltdown) untangles the complicated financial and political web threatening one particular superbank-Bank of America.

(60 minutes) In the mid-1960s, Bernard Madoff tapped money from Jewish businessmen at exclusive country clubs with the promise of steady guaranteed returns on their investments. He then set his sights on Europe and Latin America, brokering deals with powerful hedge fund managers and feeder funds from Buenos Aires to Geneva. Billions of dollars were channeled to Madoff's investment firm, and his feeders became fabulously wealthy. The competition wondered how the man could produce such steady returns in good times and bad. There were allegations that Madoff was "front-running" or operating a Ponzi scheme, which the SEC investigated several times over the last two decades. But Madoff remained untouched until Dec. 11, 2008, when he admitted it was all "one big lie." FRONTLINE producers Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria unravel the story behind the world's first truly global Ponzi scheme -- a deception that lasted longer, reached wider and cut deeper than any other business scandal in history.

(60 minutes) This year, hundreds of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illnesses will be released into communities across America, the largest exodus in the nation's history. Typically, mentally ill offenders leave prison with a bus ticket, $75 and two weeks worth of medication. Within eighteen months, nearly two-thirds are re-arrested. In this follow up to the groundbreaking film The New Asylums, FRONTLINE examines what happens to the mentally ill when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates. The intimate stories of the released -- along with interviews with parole officers, social workers, and psychiatrists -- provide a rare look at the lives of the mentally ill as they struggle to stay out of prison and reintegrate into society.

(120 minutes) More than two decades after the Clean Water Act was supposed to make America's waters clean enough for swimming and fishing again, two iconic waterways -- the great coastal estuaries of Puget Sound and the Chesapeake Bay -- are in perilous condition. With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists fear contamination to the food chain and drinking water for millions of people. A growing list of endangered species is also threatened in both estuaries. As a new president, Congress and the states set new agendas and spending priorities, FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why its so hard to keep our waters clean.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE investigative correspondent Lowell Bergman examines the shadowy world of international bribery. The story reveals how multi-national companies create slush funds, set up front companies, and make secret payments, all to get billions in business. But these practices are facing a new international crackdown, led by prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice and allies abroad. At the center of this is a controversial, ongoing investigation into the British-based multi-national BAE Systems and allegations about billion-dollar bribes.

(60 minutes) As the worsening economy leads to massive job losses -- potentially increasing the ranks of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance -- FRONTLINE travels the country examining the nation's broken health care system and exploring the need for a fundamental overhaul. The scale of the problem now facing the Obama administration, FRONTLINE finds, is staggering, as lay-offs, major illness, and other unexpected life changes leave more and more Americans uninsured, underinsured or uninsurable. FRONTLINE also goes inside insurance companies to question executives on their policies, programs and priorities and examines the problems in one state's attempts at health care reform.

(60 minutes) All of the federal government's efforts to stem the tide in the financial meltdown that began with the subprime mortgage crisis have added hundreds of billions of dollars to our national debt. FRONTLINE reports on how this debt will constrain and challenge the new Obama administration, and on the growing chorus on both sides of the aisle that without fiscal reform, the United States government may face a debt crisis of its own which makes the current financial situation pale in comparison. Through interviews with leading experts and insiders in government finance, the film investigates the causes and potential outcomes of -- and possible solutions to -- America's $10 trillion debt.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers' collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG, and the $700 billion bailout. Inside the Meltdown examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't see, couldn't stop and haven't been able to fix.

(60 minutes) In 2004, journalist Dave Iverson received the same news that had been delivered to his father and older brother years earlier: He had Parkinson's disease, a degenerative neurological disorder that affects about one million Americans. In a FRONTLINE and ITVS joint production, Iverson sets off on a personal journey to explore the scientific, ethical and political debates that surround Parkinson's, a disease at the center of the ongoing controversy over embryonic stem cell research. Iverson talks to scientists on the cutting edge of new cures and therapies for Parkinson's as well as a number of other major neurological conditions. And he has intimate conversations with fellow Parkinson's sufferers like actor Michael J. Fox and writer Michael Kinsley.

(60 minutes) As Barack Obama prepares to assume the presidency on January 20th, 2009, FRONTLINE tells the story of how a little known state senator rose from obscurity to the White House in just over four years. Dreams of Obama draws on interviews with those closest to the next president to provide insight into how Obama might lead the country. A personal and political biography, the film begins with Obama's first appearance on the national stage at the 2004 Democratic convention, and follows his carefully choreographed and meteoric rise to prominence within the Democratic Party. Along the way, FRONTLINE filmmaker Michael Kirk examines how Obama's life experiences made him uniquely suited to launch his successful campaign to become the country's first black president. Obama's closest friends and advisors reveal how his time as a community organizer in Chicago, his election to the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, and rise to the top of Illinois politics taught him how to navigate America's complicated racial and political divides.

(60 minutes) Six months after Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans, producer June Cross came across 82-year-old Herbert Gettridge working alone on his home in the lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood devastated when the levees broke in August 2005. Over the next two years, Cross would document the story of the extended Gettridge clan -- an African-American family with deep roots in New Orleans -- as they struggled to rebuild their homes and their lives. Their efforts would be deeply impacted by larger decisions about urban planning, public health, and the insurance industry, by the decisions of policymakers about federal funding for rebuilding the Gulf, and state and city plans for dispersing those monies. The moving personal story of Mr. Gettridge and his family reveals the human cost of this tragedy, the continued inadequacies of government's response in the aftermath of Katrina, and how race, class, and politics have affected the attempts to rebuild this American city.

(90 minutes) FRONTLINE looks at Venezuela's controversial and outspoken president Hugo Chavez and the revolution he claims is turning his country into an anti-capitalist beacon for Latin America and the world. Through the lens of his unique weekly program "Al Presidente" and the eyes of the Venezuelans who know him well, FRONTLINE digs below the surface of his presidency and his personality to try to understand the mercurial leader.

(60 minutes) The next president of the United States will inherit some of the greatest foreign policy challenges in American history -- an overstretched military, frayed alliances, and wars on two fronts. FRONTLINE gives viewers a hard, inside look at the real policy choices the next president will face. The report features strategists and diplomats giving their best advice about how to correct past failures and how to shape a realistic foreign policy approach in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(120 minutes) For years, big business -- from oil and coal companies to electric utilities to car manufacturers -- have resisted change to environmental policy and stifled the debate over climate change in America and around the globe. Now, facing rising pressure from governments, green groups and investors alike, big business is reshaping its approach to the environment. With the election looming, FRONTLINE producer Martin Smith investigates what some businesses are doing to fend off new regulations and how others are repositioning themselves to prosper in a radically changed world.

(120 minutes) This two-hour program examines the rich personal and political biographies of John McCain and Barack Obama and goes behind the headlines to discover how they arrived at this moment and what their very different candidacies say about America.

(120 minutes) This spring, FRONTLINE explores the generation coming of age in China today. Shot over four years, the film follows a group of nine young Chinese from across the country as they scramble to keep pace with a society changing as fast as any in history. Their stories of ambition and desire, exuberance, crime and corruption are interwoven with moments of heartache and despair. Together they paint an intimate portrait of the generation that is remaking China.

(60 minutes) Four in five Americans say the U.S. health-care system needs "fundamental" change. Can the U.S. learn anything from the rest of the world about how to run a health-care system, or are these nations so culturally different from us that their solutions would simply not be acceptable to Americans? FRONTLINE correspondent T.R. Reid examines first-hand the health-care systems of other advanced capitalist democracies -- UK, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Taiwan -- to see what tried and tested ideas might help us reform our broken health-care system.

(60 minutes) In June 2007, as the American military surge reached its peak, a band of National Guard infantrymen who call themselves "The Bad Voodoo Platoon" was deployed to Iraq. To capture a vivid, first-person account of the new realities of war in Iraq for FRONTLINE and ITVS, director Deborah Scranton (The War Tapes) created "a virtual embed" with the platoon, supplying cameras to the soldiers so they could record and tell the story of their war. The film intimately tracks the veteran soldiers of "Bad Voodoo" through the daily grind of their perilous mission, dodging deadly IEDs, grappling with the political complexities of dealing with Iraqi security forces, and battling their fatigue and their fears.

(120 minutes) 9/11 and Al Qaeda, Afghanistan and Iraq, WMD and the Insurgency, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, and the Surge. For six years FRONTLINE has been revealing those stories in meticulous detail, and the political dramas played out at the highest levels -- George W. Bush and Tony Blair, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, Osama Bin Laden. Now, on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the full saga will unfold in a special four-hour broadcast over two consecutive nights on PBS, titled Bush's War. Drawing on one of the richest archives in broadcast journalism (FRONTLINE's 40+ films), veteran producer Michael Kirk (Cheney's Law; Endgame; The Lost Year in Iraq; The Dark Side; The Torture Question; Rumsfeld's War; The Man Who Knew; The War Behind Closed Doors; Gunning for Saddam, Target America) also delivers new reporting and fresh interviews. Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history. "Parts of this history have been told before -- the invasion of Afghanistan, torture, flawed intelligence and the invasion of Iraq, failures in the American occupation, and the saber-rattling over Iran," Kirk says, "But no one has laid out the entire narrative to reveal in one epic story, the scope and detail of how this war began and how it has been fought, both on the ground and deep inside the government."

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE cuts through the fog of war to reveal the untold story of what happened in Haditha, Iraq -- where twenty-four of the town's residents were killed by U.S. forces in what many in the media branded "Iraq's My Lai." With accusations swirling that the Marines massacred Iraqi civilians "in cold blood," the Haditha incident has led to one of the largest criminal cases against U.S. troops in the Iraq war. But real questions have emerged about what really happened that day, and who is responsible. Through television interviews with Iraqi survivors and Marines accused of war crimes, FRONTLINE investigates this incident and what it can tell us about the harrowing moral and legal landscape the U.S. military faces in Iraq.

(60 minutes) Five years ago, FRONTLINE and The New York Times joined forces to investigate death and dismemberment in one of America's most dangerous industries -- the iron pipe foundry business. One company stood out, the McWane Corporation. It had more health and safety violations than all of its competitors combined, and there were a number of environmental violations as well. In the five years since our original broadcast, federal prosecutors obtained indictments against and juries convicted the company in five cases in four states. Today McWane says it has made a dramatic turnaround and that worker safety and environmental protection are now high priorities. FRONTLINE revisits its original broadcast with correspondent Lowell Bergman who then reports on what has changed at McWane and whether the company has become a less dangerous business.

(60 minutes) MySpace. YouTube. Facebook. Friendster. Nearly every teen in America is on the Internet every day, socializing with friends and strangers alike, "trying on" identities, and building a virtual profile of themselves -- one that many kids insist is a more honest depiction of who they really are than the person they portray at home or in school. In "Growing Up Online," FRONTLINE peers inside the world of this cyber-savvy generation through the eyes of teens and their parents, who often find themselves on opposite sides of a new digital divide. A generation with a radically different notion of privacy and personal space, today's adolescents are grappling with issues their parents never had to deal with: from cyber bullying to instant "Internet fame," to the specter of online sexual predators. FRONTLINE producer Rachel Dretzin investigates the risks, realities, and misconceptions of teenage self-expression on the World Wide Web.

(60 minutes) Ten years ago, stimulants like Ritalin and Adderall were the drugs of choice to treat behavioral issues in children. Today children as young as four years old are being prescribed more powerful anti-psychotic medications that are much less understood. The drugs can cause serious side effects and virtually nothing is known about their long-term impact. The increase in the use of anti-psychotics is directly tied to the rising incidence of one particular diagnosis -- bipolar disorder. Experts estimate that the number of kids with the diagnosis is now over a million and rising. As the debate over medicating children continues to grow, FRONTLINE producer Marcela Gaviria confronts psychiatrists, researchers, and big pharma about the risks and benefits of prescription drugs for troubled children in "The Medicated Child."

(60 minutes) The world invoked its vow "Never Again!" after the genocide in Rwanda and atrocities in Srebrenica. Then came Darfur. Over the past four years at least 200,000 people have been killed, 2.5 million driven from their homes, and mass rapes have once more been used as a weapon of war in a brutal campaign by Janjaweed militias and the Sudanese government against civilians in Darfur. FRONTLINE producer Neil Docherty asks why the international community and the United Nations have once again failed to stop the slaughter.

(60 minutes) In this moving and powerful film, FRONTLINE enters the world of Thomas Lynch, a poet and undertaker whose family for three generations has cared for both the living and the dead in a small Michigan town. Through the intimate stories of families coming to terms with grief, mortality, and a funeral's rituals, the film illuminates the heartbreak and beauty in the journey taken between the living and the dead when a loved one dies.

(60 minutes) As Iraq descends into chaos and civil war, FRONTLINE examines the rise of its neighbor -- Iran -- as one of America's greatest threats and most puzzling foreign policy challenges. Through interviews with key players on both sides, FRONTLINE traces the tumultuous history of U.S.-Iran relations since 9/11 -- from unprecedented early cooperation in Afghanistan, to the growing crisis over Iran's nuclear ambitions and Tehran's open threats to drive America out of the Middle East.

(60 minutes) For three decades, Vice President Dick Cheney has waged a secretive, and often bitter battle to expand the power of the presidency. Now in a direct confrontation with Congress, as the administration asserts executive privilege to head off investigations into domestic wiretapping and the firing of U.S. attorneys, FRONTLINE meticulously traces the behind-closed-doors battle within the administration over the power of the presidency and the rule of law.

(60 minutes) As the United States begins one final effort to secure victory through a "surge" of troops, FRONTLINE investigates how strategic and tactical mistakes brought Iraq to civil war. The film recounts how the early mandate to create the conditions for a quick exit of the American military led to chaos, failure, and sectarian strife. In Endgame, producer Michael Kirk (Rumsfeld's War, The Torture Question, The Dark Side, and The Lost Year in Iraq) traces why the president decided to risk what military planners once warned could be the worst way to fight in Iraq -- door-to-door -- and assesses the likelihood of its success. Top administration figures, military commanders, and journalists offer inside details about the new strategy.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE addresses an issue of major consequence for all Americans: Is the Bush administration's domestic war on terrorism jeopardizing our civil liberties? Reporter Hedrick Smith presents new material on how the National Security Agency's domestic surveillance program works and examines clashing viewpoints on whether the president has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and infringed on constitutional protections. In another dramatic story, the program shows how the FBI vacuumed up records on 250,000 ordinary Americans who chose Las Vegas as the destination for their Christmas-New Year's holiday, and the subsequent revelation that the FBI has misused National Security Letters to gather information. Probing such projects as Total Information Awareness, and its little known successors, Smith discloses that even former government intelligence officials now worry that the combination of new security threats, advances in communications technologies, and radical interpretations of presidential authority may be threatening the privacy of Americans.

(90 minutes) The U.S. is one of the very few countries in the world that allows children under eighteen to be prosecuted as adults and sentenced to life without parole. In Colorado, between 1992 and 2005, 45 juveniles between fifteen and eighteen were sentenced to prison without the hope of ever being released. Last spring, the state's legislature eased its tough laws targeting juvenile offenders. The state passed a bill that made parole possible after 40 years in prison, but the measure did not apply retroactively to the 45 former juveniles now in Colorado's prison system. Producer Ofra Bikel visits five young men in Colorado sentenced to life without parole to examine their crimes and punishment, the laws that sanctioned their convictions, and the prospect of never being free again.

(240 minutes) The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of America's fastest growing religions, and its influence circles the globe. The church has 12 million members today and over half of them live outside the United States. Yet the birth of Mormonism and its history is one of America's great neglected narratives. This four-hour documentary brings together FRONTLINE and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in their first co-production to provide a searching portrait of this fascinating but often misunderstood religion. Produced by award-winning filmmaker Helen Whitney ("Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero," "John Paul II: The Millennial Pope"), the film will explore the richness, the complexities, and the controversies of the Mormons' story as told through interviews with leaders and members of the church, with leading writers and historians, and with supporters and critics of the Mormon faith.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE and the Center for Investigative Reporting go behind the scenes to explore how bi-partisan political and economic forces prevented the U.S. government from confronting what may be one of the most serious problems facing humanity today. The film examines some of the key moments that have shaped the politics of global warming, and how local and state governments and the private sector are now taking bold steps in the absence of federal leadership.

(60 minutes) Day after day scores of bodies litter the streets of Baghdad. To staunch the violence, the U.S. has spent billions to "stand up" the Iraqi forces. In Gangs of Iraq, a joint production of FRONTLINE and the "America at a Crossroads" series, FRONTLINE takes a hard look at how the four-year training effort has fared and how the coalition-trained forces have themselves been infiltrated by various sectarian militias. Now, with President Bush sending new U.S. troops to Iraq, it remains to be seen if America and its allies can build a national Iraqi army and police and restore order.

(240 minutes) In a four-hour special, News War, FRONTLINE examines the political, cultural, legal, and economic forces challenging the news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Through interviews with key figures in print, broadcast and electronic media over the past four decades -- and with unequaled, behind-the-scenes access to some of today's most important news organizations, FRONTLINE traces the recent history of American journalism, from the Nixon administration's attacks on the media to the post-Watergate popularity of the press, to the new challenges presented by the war on terror and other global forces now changing -- and challenging -- the role of the press in our society.

NEWS WAR: SECRETS, SOURCES & SPIN (Part I)

Airdate: Feb. 13, 2007, 9 pm (check local listings) In part one of News War: Secrets, Sources & Spin, FRONTLINE examines the political and legal forces challenging the mainstream news media today and how the press has reacted in turn. Correspondent Lowell Bergman talks to the major players in the debates over the role of journalism in 2007, examining the relationship between the Bush administration and the press; the controversies surrounding the use of anonymous sources in reporting from Watergate to the present; and the unintended consequences of the Valerie Plame investigation -- a confusing and at times ugly affair that ultimately damaged both reporters' reputations and the legal protections they thought they enjoyed under the First Amendment.

NEWS WAR: SECRETS, SOURCES & SPIN (Part II)

Airdate: Feb. 20, 2007, 9 pm (check local listings) Part two continues with the legal jeopardy faced by a number of reporters across the country, and the additional complications generated by the war on terror. Correspondent Lowell Bergman interviews reporters facing jail for refusing to reveal their sources in the context of leak investigations and asks questions on tough issues that now confront the editors of the nation's leading newspapers, including: how much can the press reveal about secret government programs in the war on terror without jeopardizing national security? FRONTLINE looks past the heated, partisan rhetoric to determine how much of this battle is politics and whether such reporting actually harms national security.

NEWS WAR: WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THE NEWS

Airdate: Feb. 27, 2007, 9 pm (check local listings) The third hour of News War puts viewers on the front lines of an epic battle over the future of news. America's major network news divisions and daily newspapers are under siege, facing mounting pressure for profits from corporate owners, and growing challenges from cable television and the Internet, which are remaking the economics of the business and transforming the very definition of news. FRONTLINE talks to network executives, journalists, Wall Street analysts, bloggers, and key players at Google and Yahoo! who are all battling for survival and market dominance in a rapidly changing world of news. FRONTLINE also goes inside the embattled newsroom of The Los Angeles Times, one of the last remaining papers in the country still covering major national stories. Under severe pressure from Wall Street to cut costs and to compete for "eyeballs" in a new media world, editors at the paper are urgently trying to figure out what this means for their future news coverage and their public service mission.

NEWS WAR: STORIES FROM A SMALL PLANET

Airdate: March 27, 2007 (check local listings) The fourth hour of News War looks at media around the globe to reveal the international forces that influence journalism and politics in the United States. The lead story focuses on the new Arab media and its role in both mitigating and exacerbating the clash between the West and Islam. With a focus on Al Jazeera and how it has changed the face of a parochial and tightly controlled Arab media, this hour explores Al Jazeera's growing influence around the world -- from Muslim communities in Europe to the pending launch of a new English-language service that will be broadcast in the United States.

(90 minutes) In recent decades, more than 10,000 children reportedly were sexually abused by Catholic priests in the United States. From behind the headlines, filmmaker Joe Cultrera tells the very personal story of how the crisis affected his own family in Salem, Mass. It is the intimate story of how his brother, Paul, was molested in the 1960s by Father Joseph Birmingham, who also reportedly abused nearly 100 other children. Paul Cultrera would keep his secret for 30 years until he decided to finally confront the church and launched his own investigation into how the Archdiocese of Boston had covered up allegations against Father Birmingham and moved the priest from parish to parish, placing more and more children in danger. In a sometimes raw and emotional film, the Cultrera family tells their story of faith betrayed by the scandal that has engulfed the Catholic Church.

(60 minutes) With 35 million elderly people in America, "the old, old" -- those over 85 -- are now considered the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population. While medical advances have enabled an unprecedented number of Americans to live longer and healthier lives, this new longevity has also had unintended consequences. For millions of Americans, living longer also means serious chronic illness and a protracted physical decline that can require an immense amount of care, often for years and sometimes even decades. Yet just as the need for care is rising, the number of available caregivers is dwindling. With families more dispersed than ever and an overburdened healthcare system, many experts fear that we are on the threshold of a major crisis in care.

(60 minutes) On May 5, 2005, the residents of Spokane, Washington, awoke to one of the strangest headlines in the town's history: "West Tied to Sex Abuse in '70s, Using Office to Lure Young Men." The popular, socially conservative Republican mayor of Spokane, Jim West, had been outed by the town's newspaper The Spokesman-Review. The paper told the sordid story of a man with two lives: in public, he had once sponsored legislation forbidding gays from teaching in public schools, while in private, the paper alleged, he was trawling for young men online, using the trappings of his office to lure them into sexual relationships. But as bizarre as the revelations were, so too were the newspaper's methods. For months, a middle-aged "forensic computer specialist" had posed as an 18-year-old boy online, engaging the mayor in a relationship that became more and more intimate, ultimately exploding on the front page of the newspaper. In a media climate where sexual scandals dominate the headlines, FRONTLINE producers Rachel Dretzin and Barak Goodman investigate the complex relationship between politics, sexuality, fear, and judgment in one all-American town.

(60 minutes) In the aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, a group of Americans led by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III set off to Baghdad to build a new nation and establish democracy in the Arab Middle East. One year later, with Bremer forced to secretly exit what some have called "the most dangerous place on earth," the group left behind lawlessness, insurgency, economic collapse, death, destruction--and much of their idealism. Three years later, as the U.S. continues to look for an exit strategy, the government the Americans helped create and the infrastructure they designed are being tested. FRONTLINE Producer Michael Kirk follows the early efforts and ideals of this group as they tried to seize control and disband the Iraqi police, army and Baathist government--and how they became hardened along the way to the realities of postwar Iraq. The Lost Year in Iraq is based on numerous first-person interviews and extensive documentation from the FRONTLINE team that produced Rumsfeld's War, The Torture Question and The Dark Side.

(60 minutes) Five years after the attacks on 9/11 and the massive, multibillion-dollar reorganization of government agencies which followed, FRONTLINE and New York Times reporter Lowell Bergman investigates the domestic counterterrorism effort and asks whether we are any better prepared to prevent another catastrophic attack. Relying on interviews with high-level sources in the U. S. government, Bergman looks into the major cases brought inside the United States and reveals troubling flaws in what has been the largest reorganization of the government in half a century. The documentary focuses on who is the real enemy within the United States and whether we are prepared to defeat him.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE reports from the lawless Pakistani tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and reveals how the area has fallen under the control of a resurgent Taliban militia. Despite the presence of 80,000 Pakistani troops, the Taliban and their supporters continue to use the region as a launching pad for attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Off limits to U.S. troops by agreement with Pakistan's president and long suspected of harboring Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, the area is now considered a failed state. President Pervez Musharraf tells FRONTLINE reporter Martin Smith that Pakistan's strategy, which includes cash payments to militants who lay down their arms, has clearly foundered. In a region little understood because it is closed to most observers, FRONTLINE investigates a secret front in the war on terror.

(90 minutes) On September 11, 2001, deep inside a White House bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney was ordering U.S. fighter planes to shoot down any commercial airliner still in the air above America. At that moment, CIA Director George Tenet was meeting with his counter-terrorism team in Langley, Virginia. Both leaders acted fast, to prepare their country for a new kind of war. But soon a debate would grow over the goals of the war on terror, and the decision to go to war in Iraq. Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others saw Iraq as an important part of a broader plan to remake the Middle East and project American power worldwide. Meanwhile Tenet, facing division in his own organization, saw non-state actors such as Al Qaeda as the highest priority. FRONTLINE's investigation of the ensuing conflict includes more than forty interviews, thousands of pages of documentary evidence, and a substantial photographic archive. It is the third documentary about the war on terror from the team that produced Rumsfeld's War and The Torture Question.

(240 minutes) On the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS, FRONTLINE examines one of the worst pandemics the world has ever known in The Age of AIDS, airing Tuesday and Wednesday, May 30 and 31, from 9 to 11 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings). After a quarter-century of political denial and social stigma, of stunning scientific breakthroughs, bitter policy battles and inadequate prevention campaigns, HIV/AIDS continues to spread rapidly throughout much of the world. Through interviews with AIDS researchers, world leaders, activists, and patients, FRONTLINE investigates the science, politics, and human cost of this fateful disease and asks: What are the lessons of the past, and what can be done to stop AIDS?

(60 minutes) The baby boomer generation is headed for a shock as it hits retirement: boomers will be long on life expectancy but short on income. In addition to Social Security, the pillars of retirement income for Americans have been either lifetime corporate pensions or employee-contribution plans such as 401Ks. But both retirement strategies are in trouble. Buffeted by pension cuts, corporate bankruptcies, and the 2001-2002 stock market crash, most boomers now expect to be working into their retirement years.

(90 minutes) On June 5, 1989, one day after Chinese troops expelled thousands of demonstrators from Tiananmen Square in Beijing, a solitary, unarmed protester stood his ground before a column of tanks advancing down the Avenue of Eternal Peace. Captured by Western photographers watching nearby, this extraordinary confrontation became an icon of the fight for freedom around the world. On April 11, veteran filmmaker Antony Thomas investigates the mystery of the tank man -- his identity, his fate, and his significance for the Chinese leadership. The search for the tank man reveals China's startling social compact -- its embrace of capitalism while dissent is squashed -- designed to stifle the nationwide unrest of 1989. This policy has allowed educated elites and entrepreneurs to profit handsomely, while the majority of Chinese still face brutal working conditions and low wages, and all Chinese must endure strict political and social controls. Some of these controls regulate speech on the Internet -- and have generated criticism over the involvement of major U.S. corporations such as Yahoo!, Cisco, Microsoft, and Google.

(60 minutes) Kidnappings. Suicide bombers. Beheadings. Roadside bombs. The Iraqi insurgency continues to challenge the most highly trained and best-equipped military in the world. FRONTLINE peels back the layers and gets beyond the propaganda to take a complex look inside the multi-faceted insurgency in Iraq. The investigation includes special access to insurgent leaders, as well as commanders of Iraqi and U.S. military units battling for control of the country and detailed analysis from journalists who have risked their lives to meet insurgent leaders and their foot soldiers. On February 21, FRONTLINE explores the battle for one Iraqi town and presents vivid testimony from civilians whose families were targeted by the insurgents.

(60 minutes) Speed. Meth. Glass. On the street, methamphetamine has many names. What started as a fad among motorcycle gangs in the 1970s has become big business, largely due to the efforts of two Mexican drug runners who began smuggling ephedrine -- the same chemical used to make over-the-counter cold remedies -- into California by the ton. Hundreds of illegal meth labs are now operating in the western United States, and the effects are sweeping the nation. From coast to coast, meth abuse is on the rise, but who's responsible? Is the government doing enough to crack down on this latest drug craze? On January 31, in a reporting partnership with The Oregonian, FRONTLINE investigates America's addiction to meth and exposes the inherent conflict between the illegal drug trade and the legitimate three-billion-dollar cold remedy business.

(360 minutes) On January 9, 10, and 11, David Sutherland, acclaimed producer of The Farmer's Wife, returns to rural America with Country Boys, an epic tale of two boys coming of age in eastern Kentucky's Appalachian hills. Over three nights, viewers will come to know Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson, classmates at an alternative high school who inhabit the same world yet are light years apart. Through intimate cinematography and extraordinary sound design that puts the viewer inside the skin of the story's colorful and memorable characters, Country Boys traverses the emotional terrain of two boys who are about to become men, documenting their struggles to overcome hardship and poverty and find meaning in their lives.

(60 minutes) In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, FRONTLINE will produce a documentary special that investigates the political storm surrounding the devastation of America's Gulf Coast. Veteran FRONTLINE producer/reporter Martin Smith will lead a team to ask hard questions about the decisions leading up to the disaster and beyond.

(60 minutes) Today, the headlines are filled with speculation about changes in the U.S. Supreme Court and what those changes might mean for abortion -- an issue that has divided the country for over 30 years. Heated rhetoric from both sides continues to be heard in courtrooms and on the campaign trail. But while attention is often focused on the arguments, there is another story playing out in local communities. Pro-life advocates have waged a successful campaign to reduce abortions in many places throughout the country. By using state laws to regulate and limit abortion and by creating their own clinics to offer alternatives to women, they have changed the facts on the ground. On Nov. 8, FRONTLINE investigates the steady decline in the number of physicians and clinics performing abortions and focuses on local political battles in states like Mississippi, where only a single clinic performs the controversial procedure.

(90 minutes) In the uncertain weeks following September 11, an internal power struggle was underway deep inside the Bush administration. Waged between partisans at the highest levels of the government, that battle -- captured in a series of blunt memos -- exemplifies the struggle to create a legal framework to give the president authority to aggressively interrogate enemy fighters in the war on terror. On October 18, FRONTLINE goes behind closed doors to investigate the struggle over how and when to use what was called "coercive interrogation." The film begins with a policy born out of fear and anger and tracks how increasingly tough measures were taken to gather information about Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and finally the rising insurgency in Iraq. In an examination that begins at the White House and ends in the public debate about alleged abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, policy makers, government interrogators, and their subjects talk to FRONTLINE about their experiences as part of this internal battle.

(60 minutes) On October 3, 1995, an estimated 150 million people stopped what they were doing to witness the televised verdict of the O.J. Simpson trial. For more than a year, the O.J. saga transfixed the nation and dominated the public imagination. Ten years later, veteran FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel (The Plea, Innocence Lost), revisits the "perfect storm" that was the O.J. Simpson trial. Through extensive interviews with the defense, prosecution, and journalists, FRONTLINE explores the dominant role that race played in the most controversial verdict in the history of the American justice system.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE returns to Iraq, this time to embed with Halliburton/KBR, and to take a hard look at private contractors like Blackwater, Aegis and Erinys, who play an increasingly critical role in running U.S. military supply lines, providing armed protection, and operating U.S. military bases. These private warriors are targeted by insurgents and in turn have been criticized for their rough treatment of Iraqi civilians. Their dramatic story illuminates the Pentagon's new reliance on corporate outsourcing and raises tough questions about where they fit in the chain of command and the price we are paying for their role in the war.

(60 minutes) As a young boy Marian Marzynski survived the Holocaust in Poland. But his father and most of his relatives did not. In "A Jew Among the Germans" Marzynski sets out on a personal quest to find out how Germans are going to design a memorial to the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust. It will be unveiled this May on the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Over three years he encounters artists architects and planners who struggle with the big questions of guilt responsibility and memory. He struggles to reconcile his own relationship to the German people and meets a young "third generation" of Germans who declare their distance from their parents and grandparents and how earlier generations have dealt with the Holocaust.

(60 minutes) There are nearly half a million mentally ill people serving time in America's prisons and jails. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the unexpected and ill-equipped gatekeepers of this burgeoning population, they raise a troubling new concern: are jails and prisons America's new asylums? With exclusive and unprecedented access to prison therapy sessions, mental health treatment meetings, crisis wards, and prison disciplinary tribunals, FRONTLINE goes deep inside Ohio's state prison system to present a searing exploration of the complex and growing topic of mental health behind bars and a moving portrait of the individuals at the center of this issue.

(60 minutes) President George W. Bush called him "the architect" of his reelection victory and he has been the president's chief strategist from the beginning. But Karl Rove is much more than a political guru, he is the single most powerful policy advisor in the White House. FRONTLINE and The Washington Post join forces to trace the political history and modus operandi of the man who has been on the inside of every political and policy decision of the Bush administration, including the current battles on Social Security, taxes, and tort reform. For Rove - observers say - enactment of the Bush agenda is a way to win the biggest prize of all: a permanent Republican majority.

(60 minutes) As a new Palestinian leader signs a truce with the Israelis there is hope that after four years of bloody fighting Middle East peace talks might resume. This summer Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is planning to remove Jewish settlers and return the disputed Gaza Strip to Palestinian control. But Israel is bracing for a reaction from the settlers in both Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli security forces are warning that extremists among the settlers could with one major act of violence raise the prospect of civil war in Israel or trigger a conflict with the wider Muslim world. As the possibility of peace once again seems real FRONTLINE takes a close look at the small group of Israelis who are vowing to derail it.

(60 minutes) As the War in Iraq continues the first measures of its psychological toll are coming in. A medical study estimates that more than one in seven returning veterans are expected to suffer from major depression anxiety or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. For those who have survived the fighting the battle is not over. For some the return home can be as painful as war itself. FRONTLINE tells the stories of soldiers who have come home haunted by their experiences and asks whether the government is doing enough to help.

(90 minutes) FRONTLINE reports from inside the U.S. Army's 8th Cavalry Regiment stationed in Baghdad for an up-close intimate look at the dangers facing an American military unit in Iraq. Shot in the weeks following the U.S. presidential election the film tracks the day-to-day challenges facing the 8th Cavalry's Dog Company as it suddenly has to cope with a dramatic increase in attacks by the insurgents.

(60 minutes) Mosques burn and a filmmaker is murdered in a culture clash between Muslims and Christians in the Netherlands. A series of bombs tear apart four commuter trains in Madrid killing 191 people and wounding 1800. Al Qaeda terrorist cells are uncovered in the U.K. Germany Italy and Spain. FRONTLINE investigates the new front in the war on terror: Europe. Now home to 20 million Muslims - which some call "Eurabia" - the continent is a challenge to intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic exacerbated by political divisions over the Iraq War.

(60 minutes) The average American family today carries eight credit cards. Credit card debt and personal bankruptcies are now at an all time high. With no legal limit on the amount of interest or fees that can be charged, credit cards have become the most profitable sector of the American banking industry: more than $30 billion in profits last year alone. FRONTLINE and The New York Times examine how the credit card industry became so pervasive, so lucrative, and so politically powerful.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE offers two starkly contrasting images: one of empty storefronts in Circleville, Ohio, where the local TV manufacturing plant has closed down; the other--a sea of high rises in the South China boomtown of Shenzhen. The connection between American job losses and soaring Chinese exports? Wal-Mart. For Wal-Mart, China has become the cheapest, most reliable production platform in the world, the source of up to $25 billion in annual imports that help the company deliver everyday low prices to 100 million customers a week. But while some economists credit Wal-Mart's single-minded focus on low costs with helping contain U.S. inflation, others charge that the company is the main force driving the massive overseas shift to China in the production of American consumer goods, resulting in hundreds of thousands of lost jobs and a lower standard of living here at home.

(90 minutes) FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public. In this documentary essay, correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (correspondent for FRONTLINE's "The Merchants of Cool") also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions, and stay in power.

(90 minutes) With the United States Army deployed in a dozen hot spots around the world, on constant alert in Afghanistan, and taking casualties every day in Iraq, some current and former officers now say the army is on the verge of being "broken." They charge that the army is overstretched, demoralized, and may be unable to fight where and when the nation desires. This fall, FRONTLINE and the Washington Post join forces for an in-depth assessment of the state of the American army and the nation's military establishment. The program digs into the aggressive attempts to assert civilian control and remake the military by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his allies.

(90 minutes) It is the centerpiece of America's judicial process: the trial by jury system that places a defendant's fate in the hands of a jury of one's peers. But just how many citizens are aware that nearly 95 percent of all criminal cases never reach a jury but instead are settled through plea bargains? To overworked and understaffed defense lawyers prosecutors and jurists plea bargains are the safety valve that keeps cases moving through our backlogged courts. Critics however contend that the push to resolve cases through plea bargains jeopardizes the constitutional rights of defendants who may be pressured to admit their guilt whether they're guilty or not. In this 90-minute documentary FRONTLINE explores the moral judicial and constitutional implications of relying on plea bargains to expedite justice.

(60 minutes) Americans spend $40 billion a year on books, products, and programs designed to do one thing: help us lose weight. From Atkins to Ornish and Weight Watchers to the Zone, today's dieters have a dizzying array of weight loss programs from which to choose--yet the underlying principles of these diets are often contradictory. Is low fat better than low carb? Is Atkins the answer? And has the USDA Food Pyramid done more harm than good? In "Diet Wars," FRONTLINE examines the great diet debate.

(60 minutes) The tax shelter was one of corporate America's biggest hidden profit centers in recent years. Shelters have become so lucrative that some experts estimate as much as $50 billion is lost to the U.S. Treasury each year. And ordinary taxpayers wind up footing the bill. FRONTLINE correspondent Hedrick Smith provides an inside look at how big corporations and wealthy individuals cut their taxes with intricate, hidden, and abusive tax shelters and investigates the role of blue chip accounting firms in these secret deals.

(60 minutes) As Washington continues to celebrate the capture of Saddam Hussein, FRONTLINE takes viewers on a journey across Iraq to reveal just what it will take to stabilize the volatile nation and accelerate the transfer of power to the Iraqi people. In "Beyond Baghdad," FRONTLINE correspondent Martin Smith travels the length and breadth of Iraq for five weeks, interviewing everyone from tribal sheiks and ayatollahs to politicians and U.S. military commanders. Smith's reporting reveals a seriously fractured Iraq, where modest successes in nation-building have been offset by widespread inter-ethnic and sectarian rivalry, frustration, and violence.

(60 minutes) The past few years has seen an explosion in the popularity--and profitability--of complementary and alternative medicine. Under pressure from everyone from consumers to Congress--and tempted by huge grants--major hospitals and medical schools have embraced therapies that they once dismissed as quackery. So accepted, in fact, have alternative medical treatments become that an entire center of the National Institutes of Health is now devoted to it. But the question remains: Do these treatments actually work? FRONTLINE examines the controversy over complementary and alternative medical treatments.

(90 minutes) FRONTLINE traces the roots of the Iraqi war back to the days immediately following September 11, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered the creation of a special intelligence operation to quietly begin looking for evidence that would justify the war. The intelligence reports soon became a part of a continuing struggle between civilians in the Pentagon on one side and the CIA, State Department, and uniformed military on the other - a struggle that would lead to inadequate planning for the aftermath of the war, continuing violence, and mounting political problems for the president.

(60 minutes) In recent years, media headlines have trumpeted the release of more than 100 longtime inmates who have been exonerated by DNA testing. But what happens to these wrongly accused inmates after the media spotlight turns elsewhere and they must attempt to rejoin a world far different from the one they left behind? In a new one-hour documentary, FRONTLINE producer Ofra Bikel examines the many social, psychological, and economic challenges facing exonerated inmates, the vast majority of whom must re-enter society with no financial or transitional assistance whatsoever. The film highlights the cases of several recently exonerated inmates and the hurdles they face as they attempt to repair the damaged inflicted upon their lives. It also examines efforts to pass laws that would allow the wrongfully convicted to sue the government for compensation.

(60 minutes) The Slammer hit on Super Bowl Sunday. Nimda struck one week after 9/11. Code Red had ripped through the system that summer. Moonlight Maze moved from the Russian Academy of Science and into the U.S. Department of Defense. A new form of warfare has broken out and the battleground is cyberspace. With weapons like embedded malicious code, probes and pings, there are surgical strikes, reverse neutron bombs, and the potential for massive assaults aimed directly at America's infrastructure -- the power grid, the water supply, the complex air traffic control system, and the nation's railroads. FRONTLINE investigates the threat of cyber war and reveals what the White House knows that the rest of us don't.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE examines the hidden story of what is really driving the Bush administration to war with Iraq. The investigation asks whether the publicly reported reasons--fear of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction or a desire to insure and protect America's access to oil--are only masking the real reason for the war. Through interviews with well-placed sources in and outside of the administration, FRONTLINE unravels a story known only to the Washington insiders.

(120 minutes) Four years in the making, this two-hour FRONTLINE documentary chronicles three pivotal years in China's historic evolution from a rigid Communist society to an exploding market economy. For more than half a century, millions of Chinese workers labored in state-run factories that provided cradle-to-grave job security. But the economic reforms that have brought the world's most populous nation economic prosperity and world-power status now threaten the livelihood of many Chinese workers. The Chinese Communist Party can no longer afford to subsidize the factories, and millions of workers are being laid off, with no social safety net to catch them. "China in the Red" follows ten Chinese citizens caught up in the social and economic transformation, and through their stories reveals a nation in flux and a people struggling to survive in a world they never dreamed would exist.

(60 minutes) Each year, six thousand Americans lose their lives on the job. Tens of thousands more are seriously injured or exposed to deadly poisons and carcinogens in the workplace. Yet if one of those workers dies on the job due to a company's willful disregard for federal safety regulations, the maximum penalty his employer faces is just six months in prison. Are America's workplace safety laws tough enough? And are companies being held responsible for protecting the safety of their employees? FRONTLINE investigates workplace safety in one of America's most dangerous industries.

(90 minutes) As an FBI agent who specialized in counter-terrorism, John P. O'Neill investigated the bombing of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole in Yemen, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, and the first attack on the World Trade Center. O'Neill came to believe America should kill Osama bin Laden before Al Qaeda launched a devastating attack, but his was often a lonely voice. A controversial figure, O'Neill's hot pursuit of terrorists and his James Bond style led to nicknames like "Elvis," "The Count," and "the Prince of Darkness" inside the buttoned-down world of the FBI. In the end, he was forced out of the job he loved and entered the private sector - as director of security for the World Trade Center. He died there on September 11. His story is the stuff of Hollywood - yet it's true. O'Neill's relentless obsession with Al Qaeda, and his efforts to get the government to pay attention to the growing threat posed by Osama bin Laden inform the question on every American's mind after September 11: What did the government know?

(60 minutes) It's one of the hottest industries in America -- and with adult movies, magazines, retail stores, and the growth of the Internet -- business is booming. The Bush administration has pledged a new attack on the porn industry and for the first time in years, there's a renewed interest in mounting prosecutions. On Thursday, February 7, as the first jury trial for obscenity since 1993 is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles, FRONTLINE investigates "American Porn" and the pending political battle that will soon engulf the multibillion dollar business and its distribution partners -- some of America's best known corporations.

(60 minutes) It's the mystery of mysteries-especially to parents. Now experts are exploring the recesses of the brain and finding new explanations for why adolescents behave the way they do. FRONTLINE explores how the new discoveries can change the way we parent, teach, or perhaps even understand, our teenagers.

(60 minutes) Today, millions of American children are being prescribed powerful behavior modifying drugs such as Ritalin, Prozac, Adderall. But are these medications really necessary-and safe-for young children or merely a harried nation's quick fix for annoying, yet age-appropriate, behavior? FRONTLINE investigates the rapidly growing use of psychoactive drugs by children and the challenges of parenting and schooling in a world of high stress and increasing family disintegration. Through an intimate portrait of several families in an American suburb, the film explores how medication has increasingly become an integral part of caring for our kids. The documentary also examines the role of doctors, educators, pharmaceutical makers, and insurance companies in advancing this trend.

(60 minutes) FRONTLINE journeys into the world of the marketers of popular culture to teenagers. They spend their days sifting through reams of market research data. They conduct endless surveys and focus groups. They comb the streets, the schools, and the malls, hot on the trail of the "next big thing" that will snare the attention of their prey - a market segment worth an estimated $300 billion a year. They are the merchants of cool: the creators and sellers of popular culture, who have made teens the hottest consumer demographic in America. But are these marketers merely reflecting a growing coarseness in teen culture, or have they helped create it? Are they simply reflecting teen desires or have they begun to manufacture those desires in a bid to secure this lucrative market? And have they gone too far in their attempts to reach the hearts - and wallets - of America's youth?

(240 minutes) FRONTLINE presents the epic story of the rise of Christianity. Drawing upon new and sometimes controversial historical evidence, the series transports the viewer back two thousand years to the time and place where Jesus of Nazareth once lived and preached and challenges familiar assumptions and conventional notions about the origins of Christianity. Program 1 traces the life of Jesus of Nazareth, exploring the message that helped his ministry grow and the events that led to his crucifixion around 30 c.e. The film then turns to the period that followed Jesus' death, examining the rise of Christianity and concluding with the First Revolt -- the bloody and violent siege of Jerusalem and the beginning of a rift between Christianity and Judaism. The broadcast explores new evidence suggesting that Jesus' followers because of their diversity and the differences in their cultures and languages, looked at and interpreted Jesus and his teachings in many different ways.

In program 2, FRONTLINE examines the period after the First Revolt, tracing the development and impact of the Gospels and looking at the increasingly hostile relationship between the Christians and the Jews. The film looks at another bloody Jewish war against Rome, the second Revolt, assessing its impact on the Christianity movement. The broadcast documents the extraordinary events of the second and third centuries in which Christianity grew from a small Jewish sect to an official religion of the Roman Empire.

(60 minutes) Forty years ago, Allied troops invaded Germany and liberated Nazi death camps. They found unspeakable horrors which still haunt the world's conscience. Frontline presents the world broadcast of a 1945 film made by British and American film crews who were with the troops liberating the camps. The film was directed in part by Alfred Hitchcock and is broadcast for the first time in its entirety on Frontline.

(60 minutes) Almost 20 years ago, the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed, a teacher in a small town in Iowa tried a daring classroom experiment. She decided to treat children with blue eyes as superior to children with brown eyes. Frontline explores what those children learned about discrimination and how it still affects them today.

(60 minutes) For the first time on American television, Frontline's cameras record the most intimate details and one of the most personal decisions a woman can make. By focusing not only on the clinic, but also on a right-to-life doctor who pickets the clinic every Saturday, the film becomes a revealing study of people confronting their most deeply held values.

Air freight companies are profiting from the war as the Pentagon increases its investment in logistics, reports Michael Fabey for Air Cargo World. "Contracts and contract modifications for companies flying cargo and passengers to the war zones in 2006 and...

An inspection by the U.S. Department of Education revealed that "D.C. school administrators cant verify that their special education teachers are certified to serve the citys most vulnerable and costliest student population," reports Dena Levitz of The Washington Examiner. The...

An investigation by CNN's Abbie Boudreau and Scott Zamost discovered that FEMA gave away $85 million of new supplies meant for Hurricane Katrina victims. The items, ranging from clothes to cleaning supplies, sat in FEMA warehouses for two years before...

An inspector general's report shows the Federal Aviation Administration is hiring more air traffic controllers than it can effectively train, reports Michael J. Sniffen of the Associated Press. "The Transportation Department's inspector general said the Federal Aviation Administration is so...

A report by Kent Garber of U.S News & World Report shows that U.S. farming policy, which is leading to record crop sizes, is having a negative impact on marine life. With more land being planted, more chemicals are leaching...

An investigation by Michael Fabey of Aerospace Daily and Defense Report delves into the selection process of the Boeing HH-47 (CSAR-X), the U.S Air Force's replacement for its Combat Search and Rescue helicopter. Interviews with experts and the review of...

Mary Beth Pfeiffer and John Ferro of the Poughkeepsie Journal compiled a two-part report examining overtime at the Dutchess and Ulster county governments. The report found correction officers and deputies at the Dutchess County Sheriff's Office earned $3.9 million in...

An investigation by reporter Larry Lebowitz of The Miami Herald shows that local taxpayers were promised massive improvements to the county's mass transit system when they approved a sales tax six years ago, yet those promises have not been fulfilled....

An investigative series by The Columbus Dispatch analyzed the impact of the subprime mortgage crisis in central Ohio, as well as the future impact to the region. "A wave of foreclosures during recent years has pushed property values downward for...

Michelle Breidenbach and Tim Knauss, of The Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.), examined the previously undisclosed accounting of the National Grid fund, a little-known fund run by the power company. It spent $25 million of its customers' money on economic development projects...

A Dallas Morning News investigation has found dozens of sites with hazardous chemicals that are in close proximity to residential neighborhoods. It is a problem throughout Dallas County. In some cases, plants and warehouses are within blocks — and even...

Cary Spivak and Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailed how a motley collection of individuals and firms made money off one suspicious real estate deal in which a learning disabled man ended up buying a run-down inner city...

Salon.com's Mark Benjamin and freelance journalist Christopher Weaver investigated the 2007 execution of Genei Nesir Khudair al-Janabi, an unarmed Iraqi prisoner. Three U.S. snipers were charged in the murder. "A review of thousands of pages of documents from the legal...

A series by The Boston Globe explores the efforts of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), a program launched by the Pentagon in 2003 to aid in the recovery of MIAs from foreign wars. During WWII, over 2,000 Americans were...

Brian Joseph of the Orange County Register investigated the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, a public agency founded to finance "projects of public value." The agency "issued about $4.2 billion in tax free bonds in 2007, ranking behind only the...

To mark the NFL return of dog killer Michael Vick, this week's mug shot roundup commences with a suspect who was busted Thursday, the day Vick's signing with the Philadelphia Eagles was announced.

Today's "Friday Photo Fun" contest features mug shots of five gents arrested while wearing t-shirts advertising business giants (we've obscured corporate logos with a red box).

We hate to pile on poor Cedric "Alfamega" Zellars, but when the rapper recently surfaced to claim that a TSG story about his previous work as an informant was wrong (and maybe even based on fabricated documents), we decided to revisit his days as a government snitch.

For fans of college basketball and alleged shakedown plots, here is the Louisville Metro Police Department report detailing a July 12 interview with coach Rick Pitino about rape allegations leveled against him by a woman now under federal indictment for trying to extort money from the University of Louisville coach.

A month after filing for bankruptcy protection, former baseball star Lenny Dykstra has detailed the financial wreckage in which he is enveloped.

A laptop containing "a variety of private images" of NBA star Baron Davis has been stolen and the athlete's lawyers are threatening legal action if the material is published.

California man in unfortunate t-shirt arrested on explosives, drug charges

The Florida man who kicks off this week's mug shot roundup has been arrested four times this year, but seems to have cleaned up his act.

As if the members of Pranknet couldn't get creepier, The Smoking Gun has learned that one of the online cabal's leading vandals was once convicted of raping a five-year-old girl in the bathroom of a Texas church.

A investigation by The Smoking Gun unmasks the leader of Pranknet and the miscreants behind a year-long wave of phone call criminality.

This week's mug shot roundup kicks off with a group of arrestees who were nabbed Thursday night in Florida on grand theft charges. The total age of the quartet of perps: 46.

In a setback to her nascent U.S. Senate campaign, porn star Stormy Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) was arrested Saturday afternoon for domestic violence after she allegedly battered her husband because she was "upset because the way the laundry had been done."

A 27-year-old Florida man was arrested Sunday and charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty after his girlfriend called cops to report that he stabbed their dog Harley during an argument about his excessive pill and alcohol use.

The 19-year-old Floridian who kicks off this week's mug shot roundup was arrested June 24 for auto theft. Subsequent to that bust, he added a Sunshine State tattoo to his face.

Here are the police reports detailing the confrontation last week between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge cops, who were condemned last night by President Barack Obama for acting "stupidly" in arresting the African-American scholar.

A 23-year-old was allegedly having sex Tuesday morning with his 14-year-old girlfriend when the teen's father discovered the pair in bed. He attempted to flee.

1971 Werner Erhard has breakthrough while driving across Golden Gate Bridge; founds est (Erhard Seminars Training).

1973 Erhard drives a black Mercedes with the vanity plate "SO WUT."

1975 Est claims to have trained 65,000 people; Erhard dreams of training 40 million.

1975 John Denver releases "Looking for Space," about his est enlightenment. Later, he asks other est grads to stop sneaking backstage.

1976 Ex-Yippie Jerry Rubin recounts Erhard's spiel: "He listened to people's miseries...laughed in their faces and screamed, 'YOU ASSHOLE, YOU CAUSED IT!'"

IN 1977, EST GURU Werner Erhard had a vision: He was going to end world hunger by 1997. To that end, he started the Hunger Project, a nonprofit that quickly picked up celebrity sponsors including John Denver, Valerie Harper, and Jimmy Carter's son Chip. But, as Mother Jones reported in December 1978, the group had no intention of actually feeding the starving, just raising "awareness" of hunger—and est. The article also exposed Erhard's complicated web of offshore tax shelters. In response, est threatened to sue. It didn't, but participants in one seminar were instructed to "focus all your negative energy on the people responsible for this terrible slander." Twelve years after it was supposed to become obsolete, the Hunger Project now has only one former Erhard associate on its board and notes it has "no ties to Mr. Erhard or his interests."

READ THE 1978 ARTICLE ON EST [pdf].

AFTER NEARLY 40 HOURS inside the basement of Landmark Education's world headquarters, I have not Transformed. Nor have I "popped" like microwave popcorn, as the Forum Leader striding back and forth at the front of the windowless gray room has promised. In fact, by the time he starts yelling and stabbing the board with a piece of chalk around hour 36, it's become clear that I'll be the hard kernel left at the bottom of this three-and-a-half-day Landmark Forum. I have, however, Invented the Possibility of a Future in which I get a big, fat raise, a Future I'll Choose to Powerfully Enroll my bosses in, now that I am open to Miracles Around Money.

My reluctance to achieve Breakthrough Results is clearly not shared by many of my fellow Forum attendees. Even on day one, most seem positively elated to have plunked down 500 bucks for a more efficient, passionate, powerful life. "Hey, it's cheaper than therapy," a therapist-turned-real estate agent tells me. He ponders how to persuade one of his employees to pony up for the Forum. She's going through a rough patch, he explains—the recession, her marriage.

Not that being broke or brokenhearted would make her a minority in this room; several attendees talk about being between jobs, and one woman says she's on welfare. In the scribbled shorthand of my furtive notes, PW stands for "incidents of public weeping." I lose track after the PW count hits 65.

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

The Bush administration invaded Iraq in March 2003 with a force of approximately 130,000 troops. Top White House and Pentagon officials like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were convinced that, by August, those troops, welcomed with open arms by the oppressed Iraqis, would be drawn down to 30,000-40,000 and housed in newly built, permanent military bases largely away from the country's urban areas. This was to be part of what now is called a "strategic partnership" in the Middle East.

Almost five and a half years later, the United States still has approximately 130,000 troops in Iraq. Top administration officials are now talking about "modestly accelerated" rates of troop withdrawal, if all goes well. By August 2010, the Obama administration expects to have only 30,000-50,000 troops housed mainly on American mega-bases largely away from urban areas, part of a special American/Iraqi strategic partnership in the region.

This passes for progress in Iraq.

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Mark Fiore is an editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a web site featuring his work.

The last person to see Syed Mehmood Hashmi as a free man was his friend Mohammed Haroon Saleem, who on June 6, 2006, drove Hashmi to London's Heathrow Airport, walked him to the security checkpoint, and watched him hoist his bag and head for the gate. But Hashmi never made his flight. At passport control, constables pulled him from the line and told him they had an extradition warrant on behalf of the US government. He was to be charged with aiding Al Qaeda.

Today Hashmi, who is 29, sits in a windowless cell, in solitary confinement. He is not allowed to watch television or listen to the radio or read a newspaper unless it is at least 30 days old and censored. He is not allowed to speak to guards, other inmates, or the media, or to write anyone but his attorney and his family (once a week on three single-sided pages). The only people cleared to visit, besides his lawyer, are his mother and father, but he couldn't see them for three months after he was caught shadowboxing in his cell—an infraction that cost him visiting privileges. Hashmi's lawyer, Sean Maher, says the isolation is slowly driving his client mad.

Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, Woody Harrelson gave his handlers fits when he grabbed a bottle of Fiji Water from a cameraman and kept swigging from it during an interview—at an event sponsored by a rival water brand! Also spotted toting Fiji bottles recently:

THE INTERNET CAFÉ in the Fijian capital, Suva, was usually open all night long. Dimly lit, with rows of sleek, modern terminals, the place was packed at all hours with teenage boys playing boisterous rounds of video games. But one day soon after I arrived, the staff told me they now had to shut down by 5 p.m. Police orders, they shrugged: The country's military junta had declared martial law a few days before, and things were a bit tense.

I sat down and sent out a few emails—filling friends in on my visit to the Fiji Water bottling plant, forwarding a story about foreign journalists being kicked off the island. Then my connection died. "It will just be a few minutes," one of the clerks said.

This story first appeared on th TomDispatch website.

In the early morning of October 8, 2007, a small group of British Greenpeace activists slipped inside a hulking smokestack that towers more than 600 feet above a coal-fired power plant in Kent, England. While other activists cut electricity on the plant's grounds, they prepared to climb the interior of the structure to its top, rappel down its outside, and paint in block letters a demand that Prime Minister Gordon Brown put an end to plants like the Kingsnorth facility, which releases nearly 20,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each day.

The activists, most of them in their thirties and forties, expected the climb to the top of the smokestack would take less than three hours. Instead, scaling a narrow metal ladder inside took nine. "It was the most physically exhausting thing I have ever done," 35-year-old Ben Stewart said later. "It was like climbing through a huge radiator—the hottest, dirtiest place you could imagine."

In the end, the fatigued, soot-covered climbers were only able to paint the word "Gordon" on the chimney before, facing dizzying heights, police helicopters, and a high court injunction, they were compelled to abandon the attempt and submit to arrest. They could hardly have known then that their botched attempt at signage would help transform British debate about fossil-fuel power plants—and that it would send tremors through an emerging global movement determined to use direct action to combat the depredations of climate change.

A Beatles video game arrives at a time when participation and simulation are changing the way we listen to music.

A political scientist has become wealthy (and controversial) by forecasting for governments and corporations. So what’s his game?

An encounter in Iraq with a (would-be) female suicide bomber.

An emergency tour through the French health care system.

Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman, in their On Language column, wonder how Anne Fisher’s grammar would support an indefinite “he” when she was a “feminist.” But in what sense was she a feminist? The introduction to her reader, “Pleasing Instructor,” first published in 1756 (the 1780 edition is available on the Web), is mostly aimed at men teaching boys at school, with some attention to girls learning from a governess. She makes sure to note that she does “not mean to recommend reading at the expenseof sewing.” Boys are to become men, girls are to become ladies and all are to become moral. She and her family were involved in Whig politics, but did she oppose any but the most misogynistic strains in society? A fine woman, surely, but was Anne Fisher remarkably feminist, even in her age?.