Guest: Americo Martins, BBC Americas Region editor

Oil prices soared to a record high of more than $143 a barrel Wednesday.

The Mother Mosque of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, the oldest mosque in the United States, was flooded under nearly ten feet of water. As its members surveyed the damage an interfaith coalition of volunteers united to help sift through the wreckage.

U.S. Ambassador to Paraguay James Cason has recorded a 16-track album in Guaraní, the official indigenous language of Paraguay, turning the foreign-serviceman into a national sensation.

Will Smith's conflicted, alcoholic superhero “Hancock” hits the big screen this holiday weekend. To help review the film, the Takeaway talks to Jeffrey Roberson, a hero who has a lot in common with Hancock.

Guest: Elisabeth Bumiller, The New York Times

It's been a great year for rice prices, but a rough one for rice production. Global rice scarcity has boosted demand and that’s meant U.S. rice growers can charge more for the staple. But the high market price of rice is being canceled out by the spike in oil. Mississippi rice farmer Gary Fioranelli explains how the cost of fuel, fertilizer and other farming necessities has doubled his production costs from last year and how he's banking on a bumper crop this year to stay in business.