It’s official: summer vacation is over and Congress is back in session, preparing to pick up where they left off. This week, President Obama will attempt to take back control of the health care debate in a prime-time speech Wednesday night.

Joining us for a round table discussion on what awaits the President this week – from health care to Afghanistan to the overall happiness of the nation – is Peter Baker, White House correspondent for The New York Times; Jay Newton-Small, Washington reporter for Time Magazine; and Scott Rasmussen, president of Rasmussen Reports.

Unemployment numbers last week showed the U.S. jobless rate at 9.7 percent: the highest since 1983. This number may be misleadingly low, however; the official unemployment rate counts only those who are actively looking for work, not those who have given up on the job search. When positive economic signs tempt those folks back into the job market, the official unemployment rate could actually go up. Louise Story is a Wall Street and finance reporter for our partners The New York Times -- she joins us to tell us more.

Late Monday afternoon, a London court found three British Muslim men guilty of conspiracy to murder by plotting, three years ago, to blow up planes bound for North America. The men planned to smuggle liquid explosives disguised as soda bottles on board at least seven airplanes. We speak to the BBC’s Defense and Security Correspondent Rob Watson with details about the case.

The BBC documentary "Aftershock" takes a close up look at how Americans are getting on one year after the economic collapse. To record “Aftershock,” our partners at the BBC World Service asked Steve Evans, the host of BBC show “Business Daily” to go to Nevada and chronicle the lives of those impacted. Steve Evans joins us to talk about the documentary.

Watch a promo video of "Aftershock":

At the U.S. Open yesterday, 17-year-old Melanie Oudin celebrated yet another victory, this time defeating Russia’s Nadia Petrova. But will the young phenom keep her hot streak and take home the top prize? Takeaway sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin gives us the latest.

The World Health Organization said last week that within the next 20 years, depression will become the largest health burden on society. But treatment for mental health is often underfunded, despite the fact that it drastically affects productivity in many countries.  We talk to Professor Cary Cooper, who teaches psychology and health at Lancaster University in Britain. We also speak with Dr. Shekhar Saxena, program manager of the WHO's Department of mental health and substance abuse.

It has been described as a situation as messy as an 'Animal House' food fight. Obama's decision to talk directly to youngsters today at noon has provoked accusations from critics, including 'indoctrination' and 'politicking' from critics. The fever pitch has gotten high enough that the White House released the text of the speech yesterday in what appeared an attempt to calm critics. This was enough for Newt Gingrich, who said it's a "good speech" and "good for students to hear," but did this quiet the bickering masses? We talk to parents and a public school spokesperson for their impressions. We talk again with Sheri Fowler, from the Rockwall Independent School District in Texas; Brett Curtis, a father of three from Pearland, Texas; and Michael Campo from Chicago, Illinois.

In 2007, Iranian-American scholar Haleh Esfandiari left the U.S. on an annual visit to her mother in Iran. But when she got to the country, she was promptly arrested and charged with treason. She tells us how she was kept in solitary confinement for more than 100 days and subjected to grueling interrogations. This is all in her new memoir, "My Prison, My Home: One Woman's Story of Captivity in Iran".

The Saturday night resignation of White House green jobs advisor Van Jones is as much a story of politics as it is about cable television, as well as the drive and magnetism of Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck. Beck's show on Fox News draws around 3 million viewers a night, and it was his targeting of Van Jones that lead to Jones’ resignation.

While President Obama seems to be struggling to get his message across, Glenn Beck has no problem being heard loud and clear. To understand Glenn Beck's popularity, we speak to Michael Harrison, the publisher of Talkers Magazine, the leading trade publication for the talking-head set, along with Robert Thompson, professor of Television, Radio and Film at Syracuse University.

One year ago, the collapse of financial giant Lehman Brothers was just the first domino in a string of banking failures that culminated in the financial crisis that has now reverberated around the world today. A new report [1.2 MB, PDF] commissioned by our partners, the BBC World Service, looks at the effect of this crisis on migration patterns around the world. One myth the report debunks is that immigrants are returning home in greater numbers than before the recession; instead, the MPI determined that immigrants are choosing to stay in their adopted countries despite the lack of jobs. For more myth-busting, we talk to the BBC's Economics Correspondent Andrew Walker, and Michael Fix, co-author of the Migration Policy Institute's report.

Takeaway Extra! Report co-author Michael Fix discusses the surprising lack of success with newly-implemented pay-to-go programs, where countries pay immigrants a fixed amount of money to return to their countries of origin.

For more, read the BBC article on the report itself, as well as several graphic highlights.

All this week, we are looking back at the events that triggered the financial meltdown, one year ago. Today, we focus on the  housing market, then and now. We talk to economist Robert Shiller, of the Case-Shiller home-price index, who was among the few experts to warn of the coming housing crisis. We also speak to New York State Supreme Court Judge Arthur Schack, who has a penchant for halting the bank foreclosures that come before his bench. (Read his profile in the New York Times, "A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style") And we also talk to Pamela Zombeck, who is struggling to hold on to her home in Salem, Massachusetts.

Listen to more housing stories in this series.