Terry Gross

New York Times reporter and columnist Lisa Belkin writes the "Life's Work" column for the paper. Her recent article "The Grief Payout" in The New York Times Magazine (Dec. 8, 2002) is about the Victim Compensation Fund set up to benefit the families of victims from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and examines the controversies surrounding how the money is distributed. Lisa Belkin is also the author of the book Life's Work: Confessions of an Unbalanced Mom.

Journalist Owen Bennett Jones is the author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. In the book, he examines the country's turbulent 55-year history. He'll discuss Pakistan's history and its current relationship with the United States. Jones lives in England and has written for The Guardian, The Financial Times and The Independent newspapers and the London Review of Books. He has also reported for BBC Radio and BBC World Television.

He is a national icon in Brazil. Along with Gilberto Gil, Veloso created the provocative "Tropicalismo" movement which combined the richness of Brazil's musical past with 1960s rock 'n' roll, surrealism, and dada -– in reaction to the military junta in 1964. Veloso and Gil were jailed and exiled for their efforts. Veloso's memoir Tropical Truth a Story of Music & Revolution in Brazil (first published in 1997) is now translated and published in the United States (Knopf).

Doctors Quentin Young and Marcia Angell of Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP). They advocate a single-payer health insurance plan, in which the government finances health care, but choice of provider remains mostly private. Young is Senior Attending Physician at Michael Reese Hospital and serves as National Coordinator of PNHP. Angell is head of the Physician Working Group and is a senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Economist Karen Davis, president of The Commonwealth Fund. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine's panel studying ways to improve health care. She supports improving on existing plans such as Medicare and employer coverage. She served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health Policy in the Department of Health and Human Services from 1977-80 and was the first woman to head a U.S. Public Health Service Agency.

On Saturday night HBO premieres the docudrama Live From Baghdad. It focues on how CNN covered the beginning of the Gulf War in 1990 and managed to scoop the other networks. We feature an interview with CNN producer Robert Weiner, who wrote the memoir upon which the screenplay is based. Wiener was executive producer in Baghdad for five months, including the beginning of the Gulf War. This interview first aired Jan. 16, 1992.

He became best-known for his reporting from Baghdad during the allied bombing raid which heralded the start of the Gulf War. Arnett has more than 30 years of experience reporting, much of it for the Associated Press. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Vietnam war, and later covered wars in Cyprus and Lebanon. Arnett joined CNN in 1991 and was sent to El Salvador, Moscow and then Iraq. Arnett wrote the memoir, Peter Arnett: Live From the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad - 35 Years in the World's War Zones. This interview first aired Jan. 18, 1994.

Ret. Navy Captain Peter Huchthausen wrote the book K19: The Widowmaker: the Secret Story of the Soviet Nuclear Submarine. The true story of a barely averted catastrophe aboard the nuclear-powered submarine was adapted into a film of the same name starring Harrison Ford. Huchthausen served as technical director on the film. On July 4, 1961, the sub was taking part in a military exercise in the North Atlantic. A pipeline in a reactor's cooling system ruptured. In a race against time, the crew worked to improvise a repair. Until now, the story has been kept secret.

He is starring in the new film Love In the Time of Money and recently starred in the movie The Grey Zone. He directed and produced the movie Animal Factory, a prison drama starring Willem Dafoe and Edward Furlong. He made his directorial debut with Tree's Lounge in 1996. Buscemi has acted in more than 60 movies over the past 20 years. He won particular praise for roles in cult favorites such as Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Fargo

This year she received the John Humphrey Freedom Award for her 20-plus years in the field of human rights and democratic development in her country. She was noted for her work to promote women's rights in Nigeria. She helped organize civil protests across the country, demonstrating against the planned adoption of a conservative and discriminatory form of law known as Sharia.