Week in the News

It’s September 11, 2009. Eight years after the shocking morning that instantly consumed American hearts and minds.
U.S. troops are still in Afghanistan. New reports say Al Qaeda is sputtering, yet still dangerous.
But at home, this week was a marker of how much else has crowded onto the national stage. The president, front and center in an epic debate over health care. The Supreme Court, in an epic case over corporate money and political speech. We’ve got flu vaccine, deep space photos, and a new liver for Steve Jobs.
This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Guests:

From Washington, we're joined by Doyle McManus, former Washington bureau chief and now columnist for The Los Angeles Times.

Also joining us from Washington is Jay Newton-Small, Congressional correspondent for Time magazine and contributor to Time.com's Swampland blog.

And from Hanover, N.H., is Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic.

More links:

One of our favorite stories this week was the release of new deep space photos from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. This one in particular has a mysterious beauty:

NASA's caption: Butterfly Emerges from Stellar Demise in Planetary Nebula NGC 6302.