Noel King

UPDATED 8:00 PM

Noel King here on the night shift.

The Gates Foundation has just released a survey of 40,000 public school teachers who shared their thoughts on how to improve our nation's schools. We'll be speaking Jane Hannaway from the Urban Institute who says that right now, it's just impossible to determine what makes a good teacher. Producer Marine Olivesi spent the afternoon trying to track down teachers to join us for their thoughts on improving education - and ended up with dozens of interested folks from across the country. We've narrowed it down to a public high school teacher from Fresno, California and a young man who works at a charter school in Brooklyn, New York.

 
A striking new government statistic crossed our radar earlier in the day: 1 in 5 people in the U.S. over the age of 65 live in poverty. New York Times reporter Sam Roberts explains why. And of course, we'll go right to the source with 74-year-old Delores Miller who is about to be evicted from her apartment in New York.

And producer Chang Lin has used old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting to track down Bill Bunten, the Mayor of Topeka, Kansas. Bunten is changing the name of the city, at least for a little while, to Google, Kansas. Google's "Fiber for Communities" program is going to give some U.S. cities free broadband internet and Bunten wants Topeka, um, Google, to be in the running.

An index of Economic Adversity from Moody's Economy.com and msnbc.com has taken the economic pulse of 381 cities across the US. The good news: only one city is still spiraling further into recession. The bad news: as economic recovery moves slowly forward, understanding each community's singular struggles proves a complex task.

• DANGEROUS ADVERTISING: Digital billboards are a great way to catch the eye of potential customers, which is great for advertisers, but not for driver safety. New York Times finance reporter Louise Story tells us about a new study that looks at the potential dangers of the flashy billboards. 
• SPORTS TAKEOUT: Takeaway sports contributor, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, joins us with a look at NCAA basketball. In women's basketball UConn proves unbeatable. And in men's basketball, Syracuse has overcome a challenging season to become the number one team.

By some counts the US has lost more than 1,000 lives in Operation Enduring Freedom — the umbrella term for the war in Afghanistan. The latest casualty according to the Department of Defense brings their count to the cusp of 1000.  Staff Sgt. William S. Ricketts, 27, from Corinth, Miss. was killed when insurgents attacked his unit in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan last week. But there is a name, and a story behind each number.

Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda testified on Capitol Hill yesterday, sounding contrite and several times apologizing for the problems that have plagued his company. Toyoda stressed Toyota's commitment to safety, and, at one point, spoke directly to the families of Toyota drivers who were killed when their cars accelerated out of control. The hearing lasted approximately three hours and Toyoda faced tough questioning from lawmakers, but appeared to be hindered at times by an inability to understand his questioners.

A televised bipartisan summit on health care will take place in Washington D.C. on Thursday. Analysts, observers and the American people will watch to see if “bipartisan” is really the right way to describe this summit, as nationwide frustration grows over proposed insurance rate hikes and the details of the attempted reforms thus far.

The CEO of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, will testify before Congress today as part of a probe into his company's massive car recall. Toyoda's prepared remarks have already been released and the embattled CEO is expected to apologize to customers and to lawmakers ahead of his testimony.

Noel King here, producing on The Takeaway’s day shift.

"1000" 

On Tuesday afternoon a number of news organizations reported that U.S. forces in Afghanistan had reached the grim milestone of 1,000 troop deaths. That's because the website icasualties.org changed its tally to 1000. The Pentagon called those reports incorrect - and they are. I’d begun digging into this story on Sunday and, with some phone calls, discovered what's contributing to these false reports. It's all laid out below. 

• TOYOTA: A congressional panel says Toyota consistently and wrongly dismissed the possibility that an electronic problem in some of its cars caused unintended acceleration. Kate Linebaugh covers the auto industry for the Wall Street Journal.
• OLYMPICS: New York Times Olympics editor Jason Stallman assesses the last night's ice dancing competition and previews today's men's giant slalom ski race.
• BUSINESS: New York Times finance reporter Louise Story tells us how Wal-Mart may start selling movies over the internet. It begins with the purchase of a Silicon Valley start-up called Vudu.

U.S. and NATO forces are approaching the campaign in Southern Afghanistan in a novel way — from the allies' struggle to win the hearts and minds of Afghan civilians in the region, to the dropping of leaflets urging the Taliban to leave the area. New York Times Pentagon correspondent Thom Shanker looks at how the strategy of this military campaign differs from others.

American, British and Afghan troops have entered day five of a major offensive in a Taliban stronghold in Southern Afghanistan. While the offensive is largely going to plan, troops on the ground are dealing with far more than just encounters with Taliban fighters. The accidental killing of 12 civilians in Afghanistan in recent days has troops bringing condolences to the families of the victims.

U.S. and Pakistani intelligence forces, working together, have captured a leading Taliban figure. The apprehension of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar may cause a significant disruption to Taliban operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and raises questions of whether ties are warming between Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, and the CIA. Baradar is reportedly being interrogated by both American and Pakistani operatives. Georgetown Prof. Christine Fair, who focuses on Pakistan and Afghanistan, joins us for analysis.

U.S., U.K. and Afghan forces continue a military assault against Taliban fighters in Marjah, Afghanistan this morning. Plans for the offensive were widely discussed by U.S. and NATO commanders before the operation began, in an attempt to warn civilians in the area and limit civilian casualties. But on Sunday, two coalition rockets missed their mark, killing 12 civilians. We look at how coalition forces are doing in this critical operation with Jeffrey Dressler an Afghanistan expert with the Institute for the Study of War and Global Post correspondent, Jean MacKenzie, who is on the ground in Afghanistan.

Pro-government marchers flooded Iran's streets yesterday, on the anniversary of Iran's revolution. In fact, pro-government rallies far overshadowed opposition protests. And government supporters in Iran are dominating the online world as well. Social media channels like twitter and youtube had little more than a peep from opposition members. Has Iran's revolutionary spirit seen its end?

Siavash Ardalan is the host for BBC Persian TV's "Your Turn." Gary Sick is an Iran expert at Columbia University.

Today is the 31st anniversary of the Iranian revolution, and to mark that date, Iranians took to the streets in protest this morning. For a look at the challenges - both internal and external - that Iran is facing, we're joined by Stephen Kinzer, author of "All The Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror" and a forthcoming book"Reset: Itan, Turkey and America's future."

United States and NATO forces in Afghanistan say U.S. Marines will launch an assault on a Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province in the coming days. The announcement of the offensive puzzled many military analysts who said that secrecy is generally one key to the success of any military campaign.

A group of ten American Baptists accused of kidnapping 33 Haitian children, who the group members said were orphans, has raised complicated questions about the intersection of good intentions and misguided actions. One thing is certain: not all of the 33 children were orphans. In fact, the majority of the children do have families. The group that was asked to look after the children following their ordeal is SOS Children's Villages.

Iran's nuclear chief says the country will begin enriching uranium to twenty percent strength — up from 3.5 percent, and build ten new nuclear facilities over the next year. While the construction of that many facilities in one year is probably not achievable, and while it takes ninety percent enrichment to make a nuclear bomb, the reaction from the United States and France was swift and harsh: The two nations called for even more sanctions on Iran. We ask how great the threat of a nuclear Iran really is.

Toyota's popular hybrid, the Prius, may be the next car to face a worldwide recall, according to news reports. The move comes at a perilous time for the embattled automaker, which is accused of responding too slowly to safety concerns. 

Ten members of an Idaho-based Baptist community have been charged with kidnapping and criminal association in Haiti, after attempting to spirit 33 Haitian children into the Dominican Republic. The group says it only intended to help the children and it claims they were orphans. But Haitian athorities don't buy the story and the group's members face prison terms of up to 15 years if convicted.