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In America, it is possible to work full time but not make a living. NPR's Noah Adams begins a year-long special assignment, traveling the nation to profile America's low-income workforce. In this segment, Adams profiles Sandy Hicks, a housekeeper at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Journalist Joyce Davis is deputy foreign editor at Knight Ridder newspapers and former Mideast editor at NPR. She's the author of Martyrs: Innocence, Vengeance and Despair in the Middle East. Davis conducted interviews with Islamic scholars to try to understand the teachings about martyrdom and how those teachings had been twisted by extremists. She also conducted interviews in the Middle East with the families of both martyrs and victims.

Her latest book, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas, is about a little-known religious text that was rediscovered in Egypt in 1945. She will explain why the Gospel of Thomas was suppressed by the church and kept out of the canon. Elaine Pagels has been called one of the world's most important writers and thinkers on religion and history. She won the National Book Award for her book, The Gnostic Gospels. Pagels is a professor at Princeton University.

NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Mike Watchmaker of the Daily Racing Form ahead of Saturday's Belmont Stakes. They discuss whether Funny Cide will win and clinch horse racing's Triple Crown.

Lucinda Williams' latest album is full of love songs, but they're the kind you might play over and over after an ugly breakup. "I guess you could write a good song if your heart hadn't been broken, but I don't know of anyone whose heart hasn't been broken," Williams tells NPR's Bob Edwards. Hear samples from 'World Without Tears'.

Nobel Prize-winning biologist and naturalized American Günther Blobel is on a mission to bring churches back to the former East Germany. But city officials in Leipzig say they don't want a huge Gothic cathedral rebuilt on the site where the communist government destroyed the original in 1968. See photos of the church, and what the university plaza looks like today.

A growing market for foods and other consumer products colored with "natural" red dye has sparked a booming industry in Peru. NPR's Martin Kaste reports that thousands of families make a living harvesting the source of the dye -- tiny insect called cochineals. See photos of the insects being harvested, and discover the true source of the red dye. (Please note this correction which aired in 'All Things Considered' on June 19, 2003: ..."my description yesterday of the Cochineal insect as a Peruvian beetle. While we could claim that this is a vague layman's usage of 'beetle' that would include even certain Volkswagens, that would not wash with Dr. Paul Johnson, professor of entomology at South Dakota State University in Brookings. He calls it, 'a serious entomological faux pas.' In a further unkind cut, Professor Johnson writes: 'I would expect such cavalier biology from your colleagues at Fox, but factual inaccuracies on NPR?! ... Beetles are exceedingly distinctive insects that are well-known and well characterized in any novitiate-level biology book, as well as advanced entomology references... Cochineal insects are not beetles and not even closely related, let alone not even similar in appearance (but rather) a species of scale insect. Shame on NPR for allowing Western entomo-phobic disregard for insects to influence the misrepresentation of biological facts.")

In the last of a three-part series on Iraq's diverse ethnic and religious groups, NPR's Ivan Watson reports the Kurdish controlled northern part of the country remains stable. The two ruling Kurdish factions seeking control of their region have combined forces and are seeking effective ways to assimilate with the rest of the country.

Film Critic David Edelstein reviews The Hulk, directed by Ang Lee.

The New Leviathan Oriental Fox-Trot Orchestra may sound anachronistic, that's what it's all about. This 18-piece New Orleans group is dedicated to playing and preserving the music of the early 20th century. Host Bob Edwards talks with one of the orchestra's founding members, George Schmidt, about its latest CD, Burning Sands. It's a tongue-in-cheek collection of Middle Eastern songs, including "Rebecca Came Back from Mecca" and "Lena the Queen of Palestina."