Every day this week at The Takeaway, we’ve been asking the same question: Is today the day Barack Obama announces his running mate? Obama’s campaign has said the presumptive pair will campaign together this Saturday, which means we'll know who… soon.

Guest: Steven Farrell, The New York Times, in Baghdad, Iraq

Soaring oil prices, coupled with climate change, is making commercial aviation not only unpopular but maybe impossible. Is the mile-high club about to end for good?

Takeaway political director Andrea Bernstein and producer Adam Hirsch are taking the long way to the Democratic National Convention in Denver. They're stopping in some key states to report on what's on voters' minds. Today, they're in Missouri.

PBS is rolling back broadcasts of the children's television series "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," which stopped airing in 2001. But for some cardigan-wearing fans young and old, this is not a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Next week’s Democratic convention gives Barack Obama a big platform to tell his story. It’s in Colorado, but Obama is bringing a piece of Illinois with him, using his record as a state senator there to paint a picture of what kind of president he would be.

The New York Times’ David Leonhardt recently talked with presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. In the conversation, the senator laid out some unorthodox fixes for the nation’s economic problems. Among the proposals, Obama would call for the end of short-term economic thinking and says government should help all citizens get connected to, and succeed in, the global market.

With energy prices soaring, the economy slumping and global warming fears taking center stage, there is no end of innovative responses to this new world order. But today, hybrid cars, compact fluorescent lights and low-flow shower heads seem old school compared to the latest energy saving trend: the four-day work week.

A new study says professional sports stadiums aren’t so discerning when it comes to serving underage-looking or already-intoxicated fans.

Guest: Nazes Afroz, BBC South Asia Editor

Texas born country singer John Rich has written a theme song for John McCain, and the singer will be one of the performers at the GOP convention. On the other side of the aisle, singer Joss Stone is reportedly creating a campaign song for Barack Obama. Music as part of political conventions dates back to the 18th century. This year, the Republicans are expecting convention performances by Gretchen Wilson, Cowboy Troy, Charlie Daniels, the Beach Boys and Sammy Hagar. The Democrats look forward to performances by Willie Nelson, Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Jennifer Lopez, and Melissa Etheridge (and Rage Against the Machine, in a coinciding Iraq war protest rally). But what does music say about the candidates? The Takeaway listens to music from past conventions and previews the music to come.

Guest: Madeline Albright, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (1993-1997) and Secretary of State (1997-2001).