In my previous post about North Dakota's Bakken oil fields, I included a conversation with two young waitresses about their journey from opposite sides of the country to almost the dead northern middle. The girls had left their homes on the coasts with their boyfriends, searching for work in what they had heard was the beginning of an all-out oil boom.

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As huge banks topple, one after another on Wall Street, how are small neighborhood banks faring? The Takeaway talks with the head of Pleasants County Bank in the town of Saint Marys, West Virginia, about how his bank has been affected by the financial meltdown.

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The Takeaway continues its ongoing look at America as a "patchwork" nation rather than a collection of red and blue states. This time, we focus on “Minority Central,” a group of 408 counties that are home to large pockets of black and Native American voters.

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When it comes to health care, on the campaign trail at least, we often hear the stories of the down and out who have just been diagnosed with a terminal illness. But under a McCain or an Obama plan, this hypothetical patient would not actually be treated that differently. In order to truly distinguish McCain’s plan from Obama’s, we need to see it through the eyes of a middle income, 20-something man. The Takeaway walks in the shoes of the average uninsured Joe with Mark Pauly. He’s a health economist at the Wharton School.

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Alaska’s North Slope is barren tundra, shrouded in mystery for those people who don't live or work there. It's also where we get more than 15 percent of domestic oil. Writer Jeanne Marie Laskas is one of the few people to penetrate the tight-knit world of roughnecks — the men who bring the oil up out of the ground. The Takeaway talks with Laskas about her singular experience documenting the lives of North Slope oil workers.

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After passing the bailout bill, the U.S. Treasury has infused cash into the banks across the country in hopes to convince them to resume lending money. But does it give them the right to take ownership of banks that are still thriving?

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In his answer to the first question of Tuesday’s presidential debate, John McCain proposed using the funds from the bailout package to help Americans struggling to pay their mortgages. The Obama camp says the proposal would mean losses for taxpayers. It may not matter — the bailout is already in high gear, and the money may well be spent by the time either of them is in office.

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U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole was considered a sure thing for re-election this year. But politics are shifting and her Democratic challenger, Kay Hagen, just might win the Senate race in this southern state.

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With the country focused on John McCain’s and Barack Obama’s health policy, few are assessing what the economy’s freefall means for healthcare. The Takeaway looks at how a beleaguered Wall Street and struggling Main Street will affect coverage and care.

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The 2008 Nobel Prize in literature was announced this morning. The winner is French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.

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As medicine, technology and culture advance, we’ve gone from survival of the fittest to survival of just about everyone. Evolution is about weeding out the weak and ensuring that the strong survive. But geneticist Steve Jones thinks our advances have effectively put an end to natural selection.

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It's fewer than four weeks until the hotly contested presidential election, when every vote will count. But New York Times reporter Ian Urbina writes today that six swing states have removed tens of thousands of eligible voters, apparently violating federal law. That includes, for example, over thirty thousand Colorado voters removed from the rolls in just three weeks. The Takeaway talks with Ian Urbina to find out what happened, who's affected and what's next.

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