Guest: Scott Shane, The New York Times

This week, a federal judge ordered the University of Texas at Brownsville and the Department of Homeland Security to continue discussing alternatives to a border fence that, if left to current DHS plans, will cut through a large portion of the campus.

Supporters of a controversial right-to-die initiative in Washington state are expected to head to the State House this morning to deliver a petition bearing 225,000 signatures in support of the bill. In a grimly ironic twist, the chief opponent of the proposition and the chief defender are both ill with Parkinson’s disease.

For decades the Olympics have been tied to politics. And the Beijing Olympics, which has become an opportunity for athletes, citizens and activists to protest China’s policies on Darfur and Tibet, is considered one of the most politicized games in Olympic history. The Takeaway looks at who really has leverage when politics and sports collide.

Sixty-one years ago today, a ranch foreman named Mack Brazel went for a walk near his sheep ranch in Roswell, N.M., and nothing was ever the same. The Takeaway celebrates World UFO Day using historical tape and film clips to look at how pop culture grabbed on to the UFO craze and never let go.

Guest: Rebecca Lindland, Global Insight

Guest: Tim Porsen and Bill La Puma, Tampa Bay Rays fans

Guest: Shaun Powell, Newsday sports columnist