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John Lasseter, Executive Vice President of Creative for Pixar, Inc. Lasseter was one of the founding members of the computer animated filmmaking company. He served as Director and Animator of the feature films Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and A Bugs Life. He was also Executive Producer of Monsters, Inc. Toy Story was the first computer-animated feature film. Lasseter also directed a number of shorts for Pixar, including Tin Toy, Reds Dream and Luxo, Jr. Tin Toy won an Oscar in 1988 for Best Animated Short Film. Lasseter joined Lucasfilms Computer Division in 1984, and then helped create Pixar in 1986. He previously worked as an animator for Walt Disney.

Rodney Brooks, the director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). His new book is called Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us. Brooks offers a vision of the future of humans and robots. He is also Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at MIT. Brooks is the chairman and chief technological officer of iRobot Corporation. He was one of the subjects of Errol Morris' 1997 documentary, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control.

A lot of people are talking these days about how religiously diverse the United States is becoming. Commentator Gustav Niebhur says the U.S. has always been religiously diverse.

Muratov, the editor-in-chief of the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta, was on a train heading from Moscow to Samara when a man threw red paint on him.

Forty years ago John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, getting the U.S. space program moving with a vengeance and helping spark a new commitment to TV news. Legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite reported the event to a live television audience on that day in 1962, and he offers his reflections. (NPR aired the following correction to this story on air on Feb. 21, 2002:"I'm crushed. The once most trusted man America has let me down." This is from Hilton Evans in Randolph, Massachusetts. "Mine will likely be only one of dozens if not hundreds of e-mails correcting Walter Cronkite's assertion that Velcro was one of many spinoffs of the U.S. space program. Velcro was not invented by NASA. It wasn't even invented in the United States. Velcro was invented by Swiss inventor and hiker George de Mestral who noticed how flower burrs stuck to his pants. Upon examining the burrs with a microscope, he noticed each burr was covered with tiny fur grabbing hooks. Mestral realized he could use this natural design to create an alternative to the zipper. Mestral's idea was patented in 1955 after he perfected a process for creating the microhooks in nylon.")

The events of Sept. 11 increased the push to use technology such as closed-circuit video cameras and facial recognition software to help track terrorism suspects. But privacy advocates worry that terrorists won't be the only ones under surveillance. On Morning Edition, a report on hidden cameras in New York City, followed by a Justice Talking debate of experts on both sides of the issue.

More than 4,300 U.S. and allied soldiers are now stationed at the airport in Kandahar, Afghanistan. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports for Morning Edition that the air war may be over, but soldiers are still on high alert and working overtime to keep air traffic moving and the runway in one piece.

In the last of a six-part series of reports on New Yorkers keeping alive the legacy of jobs from a bygone era, Radio Diaries and All Things Considered profile Frank Sabatino, one of the last fishermen still docking his working boat in Brooklyn.

By some estimates, more than half the languages spoken in the world today will be gone by the end of the century. For Morning Edition, NPR's Joe Palca reports on one attempt in Alaska to slow the extinction process.

Half a year has passed since jets hijacked by terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. NPR News reports on Americans' countless steps toward recovery. On Morning Edition, one man's remembrance of the wife he lost in the attack on the Pentagon.