This week we take a look at the week ahead with Marcus Mabry, international business editor for our partner, The New York Times; and Jonathan Marcus, correspondent for our partner, the BBC.  They'll discuss President Obama's meeting with intelligence heads; the upcoming court appearance of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab; and Elvis Presley's 75th birthday.

• Fed Takeout: Louise Story, financial reporter for our partner, The New York Times, talks about Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's speech in Atlanta yesterday, where he said faulty regulation, not the Fed's interest rates policy, is to blame for the housing bubble.
• Washington Takeout:  Our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, explains how, in the wake of an attempted airline bombing on Christmas day, the routine appointment of a Director to the TSA will now be conducted under intense scrutiny.
• Sports Takeout: Kim Constantinesco is a blogger for predominantlyorange.com, a Denver Broncos fan site, and she joins us to discuss the Broncos' last game of the season and their playoff fate.

The President had initially pledged to close Guantánamo Bay within a year of taking office, but the challenge of how to move the detainees and what to do with them once they've moved is becoming an increasingly complicated problem. We talk with Vijay Padmanabhan, a visiting professor at Cardozo School of Law, about how best to make progress on closing the detention center. Dafna Linzer, a senior reporter for ProPublica, is following the President's efforts to close Guantánamo and she joins us with the latest news.

The NFL regular season is over and the playoff picture is complete. Wall Street Journal sports writer Nando DiFino reviews week 17 in the NFL and previews all the playoff matchups.

A quadriplegic mother is at risk of losing her five-month-old son in a custody battle with the baby's father, who cites her quadriplegia as a reason to deny her custody. Should the courts be involved in such cases? If so, where does ADA regulation end and family law begin? Lisa Belkin introduces us to various custody cases involving parents with disabilities, and Dr. Corinne Vinopol, president of the Institute for Disabilities Research and Training and a hearing officer in disability disputes, shares her insights about parenting, disabilities, and the law. 

Follow along with New York Times' readers at Lisa Belkin's blog post on this story.

The President's announcement of a link between alleged 'Christmas Bomber' Umar Farouk Abdullmutallab and al-Qaida in Yemen not only shed light on the real threat posed by international terror; it also raised awareness of the mobility of terror cells.  We're joined again by Peter Galbraith, former United Nations Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan, as well as Paul Pillar, director of  the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University and former deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. Both come on to discuss security in the age of franchised terror.

• Washington Takeout: When the President and Congress finish up their winter vacations, they will return home to a very different national security landscape.  Our Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich, joins the show to explain how lawmakers are going to have to play catchup to an evolving war on terror.
• Jobs Takeout: Louise Story, finance reporter with our partners at The New York Times, discusses an unmployment report due out later this week that is expected to show a drop in job losses last month.
• Sports Takeout: Nando DiFino, sports writer for The Wall Street Journal, reviews the weekend's college football bowl games and previews Monday night's "Tostitos Fiesta Bowl" between Boise State and TCU.

We’re looking at a story from our newest listening area, Denver, where school officials have just announced a new experiment in school choice, offering the choice for parents to send their daughters to an all-girls public school.   It’s a growing national trend, and Denver is one of the latest school systems to welcome the idea.

Joining us to talk about the all-girls charter school that will open up in 2010 is Kristin Waters, assistant superintendent of Denver Public Schools: She will head up the new school's office. We also speak with Bridget Ambler, a Denver mother who is ready to sign her daughter up for classes, well before the school is set to open.

The Mars rover "Spirit" has overcome many mechanical problems since it landed on the red planet six years ago for what was scheduled to be a 90-day mission. There have been computer failures, terrain trouble, and now, Spirit is stuck in a Martian crater, though still taking measurements. Engineers are trying to find a way to get the rover free while its sister, "Opportunity," rolls happily along on the other side of the planet. We speak with Ray Arvidson, deputy principal investigator on the Mars Rover Exploration mission and a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Terry Gilliam is the acclaimed director of "Brazil," "The Fisher King," and "Twelve Monkeys," among many others. With his most recent release, "The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus," he faced a challenge that many might find insurmountable: the loss of his lead actor. Star Heath Ledger died mid-filming, and Gilliam had to find a way to continue the movie-making process. Gilliam talks to The Takeaway about his filmmaking process; he says it's frequently about finding ways to see the world through outsiders' eyes.