More women than ever are returning home from military duty, but many Veteran Affairs centers don’t have adequate services for womens' health. We talk this morning with Ann Brown, director of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in  Martinsburg, West Virginia, and retired Marine Capt. Anu Bhagwati, executive director of the Service Women's Action Network, about what VA facilities need to do to better accommodate female needs.

• Washington Takeout: Todd Zwillich has the latest from Capitol Hill in the fight for health care reform.
  
• Sports Takeout: On the day after famous evangelist Oral Roberts died, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin discusses Oral Roberts University's basketball legacy. 
• Listener Takeout: Takeaway listeners are talking about fine print at their ATMs, and share some harsh words for Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and his stance on health care.

The rate of incarcerations in Texas is on the decline since the implementation of a new program that redirects money from the prison system to rehabilitation programs. Adam Gelb, of the Pew Center on the States, and Jim Marquart, a former sergeant in the Texas Department of Corrections, explain how the program works.

Yesterday marked the passing of well-known evangelist Oral Roberts; he was 91.  Oral Roberts made an indelible mark on evangelical Christianity, not only in his home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he erected his eponymous University, but around the world.

The Takeaway talks to Dr. Mark Rutland, the current President of Oral Roberts University, about the legacy Roberts leaves behind.

Every Wednesday we talk about food. In honor of everyone throwing a holiday party this year, we asked Ed Levine, founder of seriouseats.com, to give us some strategies for making affordable, easy finger food recipes for holiday parties. 

Check out Ed Levine's Top 5 Holiday Party Planning Tips and his favorite recipes.

The federal government is on the verge of spending billions of dollars on highways and public transit projects, beginning in 2010.  Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood views this as a historic moment in American history, when federal money will back policy aimed at getting Americans off the highways, out of our cars and into public transit and high-speed rail.  LaHood steps through the many areas of American life in which he's now shaping policy. (click through for the full interview transcript)

• Business Takeout:  Some financial analysts over at Moody's are suggesting that it's time for a new misery index.  New York Times finance reporter Louise Story drops by the show to explain the new formula and to calculate how miserable the U.S. economy really is...
• Washington Takeout: Todd Zwillich says the end of the year means crunch time on Capitol Hill - and the House is rushing to get some last minute things done.
  
• Equality Takeout: Patrick Madden, reporter for WAMU, reports on the D.C. city council's decision to legalize gay marriage ... as long as Congress goes along with it.

Terrorism suspects held in Guantánamo Bay may soon be on their way to a prison in rural northwestern Illinois, according to an Obama adminstration plan announced Tuesday. Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn has spoken in favor of the plan, which he says will bring as many as 3,000 jobs to Thomson, Illinois, and the surrounding area. We speak with Thomson resident Vicky Trager, who is a member of the village board of trustees. We also speak with Sue Stephens, news director at WNIJ, Northern Illinois Public Radio.

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So you want to get in the real estate game while rates are low and affordable property is abundant? Before you hop on the gravy train, be wary of the fine print. As part of our weeklong series on Life in Fine Print, we talk with Dan Green, loan officer at Waterstone Mortgage and author of themortgagereports.com. He explains why all those ads promising low APRs and fantastic terms might be concealing a slightly more complicated truth.

All year long, people around the world have been recalling the events of 1989, 20 years ago, when the Soviet Empire in Europe collapsed, country after country.  They were generally known as "Velvet Revolutions": in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the embrace of democracy all across central Europe, culminating with the final collapse of the Soviet Union itself, early in the 1990s. But shortly before Christmas 1989, the revolution came to the closed, bizarre dictatorship of Romania's Nicolai Ceauşescu ... and there, the revolution wasn't so velvety.  We talk with Nick Thorpe, BBC Central Europe correspondent and author of "'89: The Unfinished Revolution," from Opera Square in Timişoara, where the revolution happened 20 years ago.