Terry Gross

Medak's latest movie, "Let Him Have it," is the true life story of a mentally handicapped London teenager who was wrongly accused of helping to kill a policeman in 1952. Medak's own life reads like a movie: he was born in Hungary, fled the Nazis and later the Communists, arrived nearly penniless in London, worked his way up through the business, and eventually made movies like "The Ruling Class" and "The Krays."

Journalist Frederick Kempe is a foreign correspondent and Berlin Bureau Chief for The Wall Street Journal. He spent five weeks traveling thru Sibera and has written an account of it in, "Siberian Odyssey." In many areas, Kempe was the first American there. He visited a nomadic tribe of reindeer herders, a former Gulag site, and the site of a Stalinist mass grave, talking to survivors of the former, and children of victims from the later. Kempe made the trip shortly before the August 1991 coup that ushered out the Communist Party.

Monette's book "Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir," published in 1988, was one of the first memoirs to be published about AIDS. It told the story of his lover's two year struggle with AIDS. Since then, Monette has watched another lover die of AIDS, and has been diagnosed with AIDS himself. Monette's new memoir about his life before he came out of the closet at the age of 25 is called "Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story."

Producer Naomi Person talks with writer Edward Jones. He's just published a new collection of short stories, "Lost in the City," about the "lives and souls" of black people living in Washington, D.C. This is his first book.

Both writers have been with the show since it went on the air. They're part of the "Harvard Mafia," comedy writers from Harvard who have influenced the comedy business from "Saturday Night Live" to "The Muppet Show."

Lovitz played the pathological liar on Saturday Night Live, among many other characters, such as Annoying Man and Harry Chanukah. He recently appeared in the new film "A League of Their Own."

Lerner was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Barton Fink." He's been featured in the films, "Eight Men out," "Harlem Nights," and "The Postman Always Rings Twice." He's now acting in the new HBO movie, "The Comrades of Summer."

Terry will talk to three people about the recent events revolving around RU-486, the abortion-inducing drug. The drug is in use in France and Britian but is illegal in the U.S. Two weeks ago, a pregnant woman, Leona Benten, tried to bring the drug into the country, but it was seized by authorities. The case is about to go before the Supreme Court. Today's guests include FDA spokesperson Gary Fendler, Simon Heller of the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy, and Leona Benten's physician, Dr. Louise Tyrer.

Journalist Nicholas Lemann is a national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine. He's talks about how politicians need to stop pandering to the middle class at the expense of the working class and minorities.

Anthropologist, archaeologist and the director of the University of Arizona's 20 year-old Garbage Project, William Rathje. The project applies the principles of archaeology to modern garbage to see what could be learned about our civilization. They've processed over 250,000 pounds of trash. Rathje has co-authored a book about the findings of the project, "Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage."