Since the Six-Day War in 1967, American presidents have tried long and hard to encourage peace in the Middle East. After he helped ink the Camp David Accords, former President Jimmy Carter insightfully warned that peace would not come easily. "The questions that have brought warfare and bitterness to the Middle East for the last thirty years will not be settled overnight," he said. Now, six presidencies and thirty years later, lasting peace has yet to be achieved.

At Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend, Beck, Sarah Palin and niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Alveda King, invoked King's speech and memory, while calling on God and American values to lead the way in their movement. While they were gathering in the National Mall on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Reverend Al Sharpton and the National Action Network was holding a separate rally in the city to commemorate King's "I have a dream speech", held on the same day, 47 years ago. The NAN and the NAACP say Beck and like-minded conservative groups have co-opted the civil rights movement and King's memory.

What would Martin Luther King have thought about Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally this weekend? And is this the beginning of a new religious movement?

This weekend marks five years since Hurricane Katrina swept through and ravaged New Orleans. Earlier in the week, we spoke about recovery efforts with the mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, and Grammy award winning Jazz musician Terence Blanchard explained how the rich musical community in New Orleans has evolved since. Many Katrina victims are still very much in the recovery process. Five years after Hurricane Katrina there are 12,000 homeless people New Orleans. That’s double what it was before the storm.

Today, troops from the 101st Airborne Division's 4th Brigade Combat team will leave for Afghanistan from Fort Campbell in Kentucky. It's been a tough couple of months for the 101st. They've lost 41 troops in Afghanistan since March.

It will be five years to the day, this Sunday, that Hurricane Katrina swept in and ravaged the Gulf Coast. All this week we'll be looking at how communities and local culture has changed since the hurricane. Mississippi recieved less attention than New Orleans, but the state was devastated when the hurricane hit. Mississippi saw over 200 dead in Katrina's wake, with over 5,000 homes destroyed and $125 billion in estimated damage.

Devastating flooding in Pakistan continued over the weekend as the Indus River surged south and authorities raised the spectre of easily communicable waterborne diseases passing among the millions of people displaced from their homes.

The flooding is taking place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It's a time when, along with prayer and fasting, Muslims donate to various charities. We're taking a look at how Ramadan is being observed in Pakistan and here at home where Muslim communities are rallying to raise donations.  

For wives of the 4^th Stryker Brigade, the waiting game is over – their husbands are coming home. But there are still 50,000 troops left in Iraq. With the troops and equipment tasked to combat gone, the future of the troops who stay behind will rely heavily on local Iraqi forces.

As college students head back to campus, a new report says almost two thirds of student loans at for-profit colleges are not being repaid. The statistic calls into question some for-profit programs' ability to prepare graduates for finding jobs, and the Obama administration has proposed cutting off federal loans to the programs with the worst repayment rates. About two-thirds of students in the class of 2013 said that they were concerned about their ability to pay for college.

With default rates at such a high, we're asking you: How have student loans affected your life in ways you didn't expect?

Pakistan’s floods are producing some mind-boggling numbers: 3.5 million children are at risk of disease, and roughly one-fifth of the country is under water. 20 million people have been displaced from their homes by the ongoing deluge.   

And some more disturbing numbers: the UN has asked for $460 million in emergency aid. To date, donor nations have only pledged 35 percent of that amount. A little less than half the donations - roughly $76 million - has come from the United States.

Yesterday, Gen. David Petraeus appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" to outline his thoughts on how the U.S.-led coalition can succeed in Afghanistan.

"Secure Communities," the federal initiative by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is supposed to find and deport illegal immigrants who have committed violent crimes. ICE aims to do this by requiring states to forward the fingerprints of people booked by local police to federal immigration officials. But is that how the program really works? More than a fourth of the people deported under the Secure Communities policy have no criminal record at all. Some local law enforcement groups say that if illegal immigrants fear they'll be deported after interacting with the police, they will avoid calling them, even when crimes are being committed.

The 9.5 percent unemployment rate does not count a huge number of Americans: People who are out of a job and have given up looking. With millions of people out of work and competing with each other for the small percentage of open jobs, it makes sense that a significant portion will call it quits – at least for the time being – and cease searching for employment all together.

If you're unemployed but not looking for work, tell us: At what point did you stop looking for a job?

During the past two years, we’ve heard over and over again that there’s a silver lining to our housing crisis: Now that home prices have dropped, buying property has suddenly become much more affordable.

Prices are low, negotiation opportunities are high, and interest rates are their lowest since the 1950s. But is buying really the right thing for you? Or is renting financially wiser?

What information are you looking for for as you make decisions about your house or apartment? And if you're renting, what would it take you to buy? Tell us what you're waiting for to decide and we'll make it part of the discussion.

The Labor Department's jobs report for July, released last Friday, showed overall unemployment stayed the same at 9.5 percent, but that the economy lost 5,600 temporary jobs. This ended nine months of gradual increases. Concerned economists say temporary jobs can be seen as a leading economic indicator of how businesses will proceed in the hiring of permanent workers. 

On the face of it, prices going down seems like it could be a good thing. However, as economists await Friday's monthly jobs report, they're worried about the dreaded deflation. To help get a sense from our listeners, we're looking for your personal jobs report: Do you feel secure in your job, if you have one? If you're still looking, has it gotten any harder? Easier? Let us know in the comments section below.

The fight for same-sex marriage in California has been a long one. In 2004, Gavin Newsom surprised the state by opening marriage licenses to all couples, gay or straight. It was quickly shut down, but it opened up a flood of lawsuits. In June 2008, the California Supreme Court overturned the same-sex marriage ban. However, just a few months after, on November 8, a ballot measure called proposition 8 was passed by 52 percent of voters, and it officially defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman. 

At the beginning of his presidency, President Obama pledged to cease combat operations in Iraq by August 31st, 2010. As we near that deadline, Obama seems on track to keep his promise. By the end of this month, combat operations will cease, and only 50,000 support troops will remain in Iraq. By the end of 2011, the president says, they will all come home. 

Yesterday, a Time Magazine article suggested the damage from the Gulf oil spill may have been exaggerated, and that some of the marsh areas important to the Gulf's life cycle may have escaped disaster. But can we know the full extent of the damage caused by the spill, just two weeks after the leak has been capped? The impact of the sheer volume of oil – which on its long journey to shore from the spill site loses some of its toxic qualities in the ocean – has yet to be determined. How can we better understand the complexity of the spill, and the road to recovery?

Yesterday, just one day before Arizona's controversial immigration law was to go into effect, a federal judge put a last-minute hold on some of the most controversial parts of the law, including the requirement for immigrants to carry papers at all times, and the directive for officers to check the immigration status of people they detain for other reasons.

For civil rights groups who oppose the law, it's a last-minute reprieve. For law enforcement agencies who supported it, it's a disappointing setback. It's been a long three months for supporters and opponents alike since Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed S.B. 1070 into law on April 23rd. 

Biomechanical researchers analyzed 100 years of athletes' heights, weights and running and swimming records, and demonstrated how the placement of one's center of gravity affects one's athletic performance. No big deal, right? People got jumpy, however, when the International Journal of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics published the paper: “The Evolution of Speed in Athletics: Why the Fastest Runners are Black and Swimmers are White.”