Jim Colgan

On the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia, we're looking at how useful the user-generated encyclopedia is by giving you a quiz about public radio. Answer the following questions as best you can using Wikipedia. We'll announce results on the air. Thanks!

We've been asking readers and listeners to let us know if their streets have been plowed. Here are maps from Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday showing what readers have reported as unp...

We've been asking readers and listeners to let us know if their streets have been plowed. Here's a map from folks who texted us the situation on their street as of Wednesday (white balloons represent unplowed streets). Let us know yours by texting PLOW to 30644.

We turn the show over to you, with a topic that you've been talking about a lot this week: What do you call yourself, if you come from a mixed-race background? Is "biracial" okay, or is it just "black"? And what about other races or ethnicities? Keep the conversation going here or text START to 69866 to get involved every day.

“Get over it!” is the advice from Justice Antonin Scalia. Ten years ago this weekend, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the recount in Florida, which gave the state's electoral votes to George W. Bush. A decade on, it seems it's hard for some people to forget.

We're revisiting the case that determined who would occupy the White House in 2000 and asking, what if Gore had won?

Checks for almost two million Americans are starting to come to an end today after Congress decided not vote to extend unemployment benefits. And unless it passes a bill soon, benefits that had been extended up to 99 weeks will come to an end this month.

However, there was some good news on the job front today. Private sector employment posted its biggest increase in three years, according to a report by payroll company ADP. Payrolls for private employers rose by 93,000 in November, the company reported.

We'll talk about this tomorrow, and we want to talk to you if you're affected by either of these news stories: Are you collecting unemployment and worried about your benefits ending? Or have you just gotten hired?

As the year winds down, we invite you to share a picture and sound of what stood out most to you in the past 12 months.

Takeaway digital editor Jim Colgan sets up the assignment, and shares a moving story we got for our last assignment, What Home Means to You. It's from Steve in Troy, Mich. and it gives the image and sounds of his family's last Thanksgiving in the house that they've owned for 20 years.

As the year winds down, we invite you to share what stood out most to you in the past 12 months. Take a photo or record audio or video of the person or thing that summed up your year.

It could be bad or good. It could be the big ticket item you bought — or the one you weren't able to buy. It could be an event that changed your life (new baby, wedding). The one event that defined this year for you. 

You can send us the photo, audio or video with our iPhone app or if you don't have an iPhone, you can submit the photo right here.

See a slide show of submissions.

In honor of Thanksgiving, all this week we’re talking about what makes a home, a home. And we’ve been hearing from lots of you via our iPhone app. Some of the latest submissions feature chickens in a back yard, a construction project next door and four-legged companions.

The Department of Homeland Security is recommending a more specific system to inform the public of potential threats. And we’ve been asking for your suggestions of what to replace it with. And you delivered in droves.

Dagel from Fairhaven, Mass. said:
“How about using characters from horror movies? It’s going to be a Jason kind of day today when you’re traveling.”

Aaron Champion called from Oklahoma, City to suggest:
"I think we should convert the terror alert system to the varying levels of humiliation you have to go through at the airport screening facility.”

We preview our interview with Isabel Wilkerson, author of an oral history of the Great Migration of black Americans from the South to the North. Takeaway digital editor Jim Colgan runs through some of the stories we got from you.

Rafer and Kristen, possibly the only two people in the world who aren't enthralled with Harry Potter, talk with Takeaway Digital Editor (and Potter aficionado) Jim Colgan about the latest in the Harry Potter series.

The notion of home means something different for everyone. As part of our Thanksgiving series on the home, you've been sending in the images and sounds of the things the invoke home to you.

For some of you, home is the company you share. To Erin in Dearborn, Mich. and Nicholas in Joplin, Mo., that's a cat. To Michael in West Palm Beach, Fla., it's a human being — his girlfriend, Laura.

A typical image in a home ideal is a comforting hearth. That's the case in real life for Alexsis in Ossining, NY, who sent us a video of her crackling fireplace.

For Carl in Detroit, Mich., home is something he can take with him: his wind chimes. He just moved to a new neighborhood and he says the new house wasn't a home until the wind chimes were up on the back porch.

And for Nik in Milwaukee, home is "the smell of warm waffles & syrup, the sound of Saturday morning cartoons, the glint of sunshine streaming through the curtains."

Here are some of the images and sounds you've sent us.

The backlash against new airport screening procedures is growing. Last month, the Transportation Security Administration started rolling out full body scanners that allow screeners to check for weapons concealed by clothing. If a passenger opts out of the scan, they must submit to an "enhanced" pat-down.

A group of fliers is calling for people to boycott the scanners over the Thanksgiving holiday, forcing screeners to conduct the pat-downs, causing disruptions at one of the busiest travel times of the year. The scanners take about 30 seconds, but the pat-downs last several minutes per passenger.

We'll ask Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the new policy, but we're asking you, Is this controversy causing you to rethink your travel plans during the holidays?

Just in time for the holidays, we're asking, What says home to you? Identify the scenes, the sounds and the events of what makes a place a home: Snap a photo, record audio or video and upload it via The Takeaway iPhone app.

Read more about the assignment and the new series we're launching for Thanksgiving.

Home is where you hang your hat. There's no place like it, or so we're told. But what exactly is home? Is it a place? A state of mind? A smell, sound or look? Or the presence of a person we love?

During the week of Thanksgiving, we'll be exploring the notion of home each day. We'll look at the details that matter: from the specific structural aspects of a home to our ideas of what constitutes a homeland. And we'll be talking with people across the United States (and maybe even outside it).

John and Celeste will also share their personal memories of home, and what the word home means to them.

Tell us: What  says 'home' to you?  What are the details that make a place look like, smell like, or sound like home to you? Is home a place you long for, or do you carry it with you? Is there something that makes you love or dread the thought of going home for the holidays?

This is the latest assignment with The Takeaway iPhone app. Take a photo of the things that make a place home to you. Record audio of the sounds. And take video of the events that make it that way.

If you don't have an iPhone, just submit the photo below. If you do, get the app.

Every  Monday, we give you an assignment to record audio or video, or take a picture on our iPhone app. Every Friday, we put together the best submissions and talk about them on the air.

This week, the words you say that you think are different from the way everyone else says them.

Accents differ from place to place and change from time to time. We’re tracking them with your help. And at Yale University, they just started a project where they’re trying to track dialects across all of North America.

Takeaway digital editor Jim Colgan curates some of the submissions and shows how the way he pronounces his words gets in the way of buying movie tickets.

One of the hardest things for a politician to do is to ask people to give up benefits or pay more in taxes. Which is why President Obama appointed a bipartisan commission last February to come up with ideas to deal with the ever-ballooning deficit. Now the panel is releasing its suggestions and the complaints are already coming in.

The panel recommends cutting the tax deduction for mortgage interest payments. It suggests reducing some social security benefits and raising the retirement age. There's also a 15-cents-a-gallon increase in the federal gasoline tax, but a proposal to consolidate other taxes.

From the sounds of it, everyone will be affected by the sacrifices proposed.

We're asking you, What would you be willing to give up to help the government save money?

The head of the World Bank is calling for a new version of the gold standard. But what would you pick instead of gold?

Robert Zoellick laid out a proposal for reform of world currencies that included considering "employing gold as an international reference point ... Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today."

If gold is the old money, then what else could we peg our currencies to?

People are passing out in movie theaters after seeing Danny Boyle's new film, "127 Hours," and it's not even out yet. James Franco stars as the man forced to sever his own arm after he gets trapped under a rock while hiking, a worst nightmare come true.

We're asking people for their idea of "worst nightmare." What situation scares you the most? Could be as serious as getting trapped or as mundane getting stuck with someone you can't stand.