Peter Hirshberg, Chairman of Technorati, lends an inside look at his expertise to the world blogging and how it has come to be. He shares how blogging has helped shape the internet in the global market today.

From the page:

From the page: -- For more than 3,500 years, observant Jewish women have been making monthly trips to a ritual bath called the mikvah.

From the page: -- Eighteen years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become an Independence Day tradition: hosts, reporters, newscasters and commentators reading the Declaration of Independence. --

From the page:

Rebuilding takes many forms. Community groups in Minnesota -- concerned with affordable housing -- are joining groups of prison inmates trying to resurrect careers of their own.

From the page: -- The human body contains 20 times more microbes than it does cells. In fact, a visitor from outer space might think the human race is just one big chain of microbe hotels. --

From the page: -- Three militant groups holding a 19-year-old Israeli tank gunner ask Israel to free 1,000 prisoners and "end all aggression" in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel reiterated that the soldier should be released unconditionally. --

From the page: -- Torture is never acceptable, but it's a reality that should be covered by rules, Alan Dershowitz says. The lawyer and Harvard Law School professor says the president should be held responsible for acts of torture and be required to sign torture warrants. --

From the page: -- Israeli troops remain poised just outside the Gaza Strip, and officials say they could soon launch a major offensive against Palestinian militants holding a captured Israeli soldier.

From the page: -- Michael John Carley is trying to change your image of autism. He has autism and he's happy just the way he is. He thinks that might surprise you. --

From the page: -- Superman is returning! And he's really expensive. Humorist Brian Unger puzzles over why Time Warner is spending somewhere in excess of $350 million to produce, distribute and market the superhero epic -- and why the CNN cash cow will be paying for it all. --

From the page:

From the page: -- Two of last week's biggest stories -- the arrest of seven Florida men on a conspiracy bombing plot and the government's probe into the records of a banking group called SWIFT -- were covered by the media in very different ways. --

-- What if you were walking along a sidewalk and came upon a hand-written postcard, lying writing-side up on the ground, stamped yet un-mailed? Would you pick it up? Would you drop it in a mailbox? And would you read the note beforehand?

-- Culturally, the Western world sees Iran as cloaked in black robes and turbans, a nation repressed by conservative mullahs and ideologically pristine.

-- We've all heard about the "laws of attraction" -- but what about the laws of Internet dating? Online dating services and some of their users have been accused of committing fraud.

-- On Sunday, more than half of the members of the International Whaling Commission declared that group's two-decade-old ban on hunting whales no longer necessary. How do modern-day whalers make their kills?

-- Joseph Galloway recently retired from Knight Ridder newspapers where he was a senior military correspondent. He is also co-author of We Were Soldiers Once... and Young. -- Interview with Joseph Galloway

-- Gonzalo Rubalcaba is one of the most popular pianists on the jazz scene. The Cuban expatriate's latest CD touches on some of the music he was forbidden to learn in Communist Cuba: the work of Cuban classical composers. Rolando Arrieta profiles the artist. --

When your eyes are tired, let your ears take over for a while

We're all news addicts.

-- A Washington Post reporter has found that the support of Somali women was instrumental in the recent takeover of the country's capital, Mogadishu, by Islamist militias. Host Debbie Elliott talks to the reporter, Craig Timberg. --