Jon Meacham salutes a true public servant, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who retires this year, after serving both Democratic and Republican administrations with distinction.

Famed New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast gives us her unique take on the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper in an animated cartoon.

Jon Meacham considers whether the death of Osama Bin Laden will give President Obama a new opportunity to adjust the nation's agenda, allowing a new focus on improving national security by investing in America's economic future.

Alison Stewart speaks with Princeton Professor Bernard Haykel who believes that al Qaedas jihadism is far from over despite the so called Arab Spring because he says al Qaeda responds and gives voice to a profound sense of humiliation and injustice felt by some in the Arab world

Need to Know examines the economic toll that Osama bin Laden and 9/11 exacted on the United States.

As part of NTK's ongoing collaboration with the VII Photo Agency, we bring you photographer Marcus Bleasdale's portrait of one remarkable symphony orchestra that's thriving in Congo's capital city, Kinshasa.

Alison Stewart sits down with New York Times reporter Louise Story to discuss why, in the aftermath of the financial crisis that generated hundreds of billions in losses, no high-profile participants in the disaster been criminally prosecuted or jailed.

PBS talk show host and author Tavis Smiley talks with Alison Stewart about his new book, "Fail Up: 20 Lessons on Building Success from Failure."

As schools face tighter budget constraints, music programs are often first on the chopping block. But the People's Music School - a non-profit in Chicago - is trying to fill that gap, and as a result, has become one of the most highly coveted schools in the city. At the annual enrollment, we found out that families will do just about anything to get their kids free music lessons.

In conjunction with Detroit Public Television, Need to Know follows students at a Detroit middle school as they compete against students from around the city and more affluent suburbs in a national engineering contest to design the city of the future.

A report on the controversial plan by Mayor Dave Bing to "right-size" Detroit, by shrinking the sprawling city down to a more manageable size, through financial and other incentives to get residents to move.

This week on Need to Know, we team up with ProPublica to examine the harmful effects of tainted drywall manufactured in China, and the legal frustrations consumers encounter when trying to sue foreign manufacturers for damages. We follow one homeowner whose family abandoned their home because of tainted drywall, and see how she eventually took her case to Congress.

Jon Meacham comments on the controversy in some Christian communities over an evangelical minister's book, which questions the existence of hell.

'ObamaRail' the new 'ObamaCare.' Much like last year's divide on healthcare reform. Republicans and President Obama again find themselves at odds; this time on whether or not to build a nation-wide high-speed rail network. Former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, a democrat and co-chair of Building America's Future, makes his case for spending now on modernizing the nation's infrastructure.

For more than ten years, photographer Sarah Hughes has traveled the globe for her "Safe and Sexy" project, documenting people in one outfit in which they feel "safe," and one in which they feel "sexy." The photographs are accompanied by audio interviews where predominately women - and some men - answer questions about themselves and what makes them feel safe, sexy, vulnerable and powerful.

On the one year anniversary of the BP gulf spill, we'll return to the community of Grand Isle, Louisiana to visit with the families and business owners who m we profiled during the spill. At the time, their businesses were practically shuttered by the spill, and they were just beginning the process of filing claims against BP. How have they fared a year later?

In this essay, Need to Know's Jon Meacham explains the reasoning behind the Framers' decision to allow only native-born Americans to run for president, and argues that it's time to repeal that part of the Constitution.

In the latest installment of Need To Knows Fixing America we asked educators, policy makers and other big thinkers how they would put the countrys education system on the path to straight A s. Among the voices are Linda Darling-Hammond on policy consensus NEA President Dennis Van Roekel on the importance of teaching as a profession and Asia Society CEO Vishaka Desai on global literacy.

The Microsoft Kinect has launched a revolution in gaming technology by turning the game player into the controller. Now, hackers have repurposed the Kinect to allow people to control computers and the digital world using just their body movements. Known as gesture technology, this innovation will change the way we live, from how we cook in the kitchen to the way doctors perform surgery.

Jon Meacham offers a comparison between President Kennedys mistakes during the Bay of Pigs and the difficulties President Obama faces in the current political climate