The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is asking Anita Hill to consider apologizing for accusing the justice of sexually harassing her. Virginia, or Ginni, Thomas made the request in a voicemail message left over the weekend, some 19 years after Hill made the accusation during the justice's confirmation hearing. This comes as Virginia Thomas has made headlines for launching a conservative nonprofit group called Liberty Central. We take a look at Virginia Thomas and her political activism with Ken Vogel of Politico.

People in California are voting on whether to legalize the recreational use of marijuana in next Tuesday's election. Proposition 19 also allows local government to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes. If passed, legal recreational marijuana use would be added to medical marijuana use, which was approved by California voters in 1996. Peter Hecht writes the Weed Wars blog for the Sacramento Bee and joins us to talk about the implications of Prop 19.

After spending billions of dollars bailing out indebted banks and suffering a squeeze on tax revenue and a hike in welfare bills, the British government is putting on the brakes. Treasury chief George Osborne announced about $128 billion in spending cuts today, which could lead to the loss of 500,000 jobs. It's the biggest British spending such cut since World War II. The BBC's political correspondent Rob Watson joins us from Westminister.

A federal judge is hearing the case of 26 National Guard veterans from Oregon who claim that military contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root exposed them to a cancer-causing chemical at a water treatment plant in Iraq in 2003. The veterans say that a rust inhibitor used there contained the well-documented carcinogen hexavalent chromium, the same chemical that Erin Brockovich made infamous in the 1990s. KBR has said it's not responsible for the illnesses. We speak with Julie Sullivan, staff writer at The Oregonian newspaper. Her reports on hexavalent chromium helped lead to the creation of a state fund and national V.A. registry for affected vets.

Here & Now's Andrea Shea profiles the music duo, The Books.  Cellist Paul de Jong and singer-guitarist Nick Zammuto create ear bending collages of sound blending electronica, with their own instruments, voices and tons of obscure "found" audio. The Books are currently on tour supporting their new release "The Way Out."

• Calexico, "Crumble"
• Ken Vandermark, "New Acrylic"
• Moby, "Inside"
• The Funk Brothers, "Keep Me Hangin' On"
• Massive Attack, "Saturday Come Slow"
• Joe Jackson, "Steppin' Out"