Today, we take a deeper look at Rhode Island's political landscape in the run-up to the midterm elections. Rhode Island's unemployment rate, at 11 percent, is one of the highest in the country. Democrats are fighting to hang on to Patrick Kennedy's vacated house seat and President Obama has yet to endorse the Democratic candidate for governor, who is locked in a fierce four-way race. 

We talk to Buddy Cianci, former mayor of Providence and current host of WPRO's talk radio program The Buddy Cianci Show.  

In the final days leading up to midterm elections, some of the most prominent candidates on the national stage are women. Between Meg Whitman firing her immigrant housekeeper, Carly Fiorina getting caught mocking her opponent's hair, Sharron Angle attacking Harry Reid, and Linda McMahon trumpeting her success in the brutal world of professional wrestling, conservative women politicians have earned a reputation as being mean girls with cutthroat personalities who play by their own rules. 

Mid-term elections are just two weeks away, and a frenzy of campaigning from President Obama, First Lady Michelle, and the Tea Party express is about to get underway.

Takeaway managing producer, Noel King, and Charlie Herman, business and economics editor for The Takeaway and WNYC Radio, explore what's ahead this week as we get close to election day.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and challenger Sharron Angle faced off in their first – and only – debate last night. Polls show Reid and Angle running virtually neck and neck. 

Ian Mylchreest, Senior Producer for KNPR's State of the Union, joins us with a re-cap of the debate. Mylchreest says the contest isn't as much about Angle's popularity as it is about Reid's unpopularity. Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich has been watching the race from Capitol Hill. 

Described as a chain-smoking, impassioned literary critic and political essayist, he has spent his adult life advocating for democratic reform in China. Today, he becomes the first Chinese citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And as of now, it is unclear how he will receive that news in his prison cell.

Liu Xiaobo is the winner of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his nonviolent political reform movement. The 54-year-old is months into an 11 year prison sentence for "inciting the subversion of state power."

On October 7th, 2001, less than a month after the attacks of September 11, American and British forces entered Afghanistan seeking to disrupt terrorist activities and capture members of al-Qaida. Nine years later we look back and reflect on one of the longest armed conflicts the U.S. has ever seen. Gideon Rose, editor of Foreign Affairs joins us for the hour.

On Wednesday, President Obama will present the Medal of Honor to the parents of Staff Sergeant Robbie Miller, killed in action in Afghanistan at the age of 24. Miller is credited with saving the lives of seven American soldiers and fifteen Afghan troops as he charged toward an enemy position, drawing fire away from his comrades. 

Miller is only the third person to receive the Medal of Honor for valor in Afghanistan, and many wonder why that number is so low. 

The Supreme Court begins a new term today, facing a list of cases with several dominant themes: personal privacy, the rights of corporations, and just how far the far-flung boundaries of First Amendment protection extend when offensive speech is involved. The court has three female justices for the first time in its history, although newly-appointed Justice Elena Kagan will need to recuse herself from several cases she had pursued or submitted in her former role as Solicitor General.

All this week, we've talked about class on The Takeaway. And we gave you an assignment: take a photo of something in or around your house that indicates what class you're in. 

You sent us some great photos, which you can see after the jump — and we've asked photographer Karen Marshall to help curate them. Marshall is a documentary photographer. She's on the faculty at the International Center of Photography, where she is a seminar leader in the photojournalism documentary program.

Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has promoted his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, to the rank of general, just one day before a rare meeting of North Korea's ruling Workers Party. The move added to speculation that Kim Jong-un will take over for his ailing father in the future. 

Noel King on the day shift – with some stories we’re following for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg will reportedly announce on the Oprah Winfrey show that he’s donating $100 million dollars to the troubled Newark public school system. Zuckerberg isn’t the first multi-billionaire to donate vast sums to education, but the result of such generosity isn’t always immediate success. Zuckerberg’s $100 million seems like a drop in the bucket when you consider that the district’s yearly budget is $940 million dollars. That averages out to about $22,000 a year spent on each of the district’s 40,000 students. Nevertheless, only half of those students graduate. Why? WNYC’s Bob Hennelly has been covering the city of Newark since the 1980s. He'll put Newark’s education failures into context for us tomorrow. Bob says you can’t look at the schools without considering the entire city.

Plus, we’ll hear the songs that Chile’s trapped miners have asked to be added to iPods sent down to them from the surface. And New York Times finance reporter Louise Story joins us with a review of Oliver Stone’s "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps."

Noel King with some stories we’re following for tomorrow.

2010 has become the deadliest year for NATO forces in Afghanistan following a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan in which nine people — most of them believed to be American — were killed. Zabul province, where the helicopter went down, is controlled by insurgents but NATO did not report hostile fire. Tomorrow, we'll take a look at both the necessity and the perils of helicopter transit in Afghanistan — and explore the helicopter’s place in modern warfare from Vietnam to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the present day.

Noel King on The Takeaway’s day shift with some stories we’re following for tomorrow.

We’ll spend a full hour tomorrow morning drilling down into the aftermath of the Gulf oil gusher. The Macondo well is plugged, but unanswered questions remain. Chief among them: what actually happened to the five million barrels of oil that spilled into the ocean? And what will be the long-term affects of the oil on the environment? 

We’ll check in with friends of The Takeaway who've joined us from along the Gulf Cost: shrimpers, boat captains, local mayors and restaurant owners.

Afghan voters went to the polls this weekend to cast their ballot in parliamentary elections. More than 2,500 candidates ran for 249 seats. According to reports from Afghanistan, many candidates tried to buy the election by paying voters for their ballots and busing crowds of people into polling stations. Meanwhile, election day quickly turned violent in some locations, with dozens of rocket attacks and violence at polling stations. The New York Times reported that more than 12 people were killed in election-related violence. Due to security concerns, some polling stations remained closed or had very little voter turnout.

Tomorrow, we take a close look at wealth and poverty in America. Census figures released Thursday show that 44 million Americans lived in poverty in 2009. That’s one in seven people. Perhaps even more disturbing, that number is up four million from 2008. The recession is clearly what’s impacting people’s fortunes and the number of impoverished people living in America today is approaching the stark percentage that led to the War on Poverty in the 1960s.

Earlier this week, one of three American hikers who had been detained in Iran since last summer was released from prison. Iranian police arrested Sarah Shourd and her two companions, Shane Bauer and Joshua Fattal, in July 2009 on Iran's border with Iraq and accused the trio of espionage. 

Alex Fattal, Joshua Fattal's older brother says all three hikers are innocent and were wrongly imprisoned.

Politics will continue to dominate the news cycle tomorrow as the Republican Party takes stock of Tea Party candidate Christine O’Donnell’s upset over Rep. Mike Castle in Delaware. We’ll ask where the conversation between Republicans and Tea Partiers goes from here. And we're asking, Are you moving further along the political spectrum this election season? Are you finding yourself moving further left or further right this year? Let us know.

We’re awaiting primary returns from seven states. Takeaway Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich will join us with a look at whether the returns paint a cohesive picture of the American political landscape — or whether most of these races were local.

We’re looking forward to a bonanza of state primaries on Tuesday, and while it’s tough to find themes that all of the races have in common, we’ll look at two that seem to be rearing their heads nationwide: voter anger and voter apathy. 

This political season, there's a debate raging over whether to suspend tax cuts for "the rich." But what does it mean to be rich these days anyway? The tax code says it's $250,000 a year. We're asking, How much do you think you have to earn to be considered rich?

Noel King on the day shift with some stories we’re following for tomorrow.

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the complex world we inhabit requires a “new American moment.” We’ve asked listeners to weigh in on how they define a classically American moment — whether positive or negative. And we’ve picked a few of our own: the March on Washington, shock and awe and American astronauts landing on the moon. What's yours?