To the Point

Poverty in America on Thanksgiving Day

"Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World" according to a recent United Nations report on global inequality. Any doubts about poverty in America have been erased by the plight of New Orleans, where 30 percent lived below the official poverty line. Whatever happened to Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty?" Have massive government programs instituted by Democrats failed to deliver or have they been eviscerated by Republican cuts in taxes and spending? What does race have to do with it? On this archived edition of To the Point, Warren Olney speaks with journalists, civil rights advocates, religious leaders and a Senator who's introduced the first-ever Republican initiative to fight poverty. (This program originally aired on September 12.)Making News: Sounds of Silence Mark Today's New Orleans One part-time resident of New Orleans is Harry Shearer, musician, actor, writer and host of Le Show. He has been visiting the house that he loves in the city that he loves. He has an update on the changes he sees in New Orleans nearly three months after Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on August 29.Reporter's Notebook: The Latin Republic of the United StatesLatinos have become the largest minority in the US, with thriving Spanish-speaking communities not just in LA, New York and Miami, but in the Midwest, Great Plains and the Deep South. H-ctor Tobar, the son of Guatemalan immigrants and a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, is author of Translation Nation. In it, he argues that this "Latin Republic of the United States" will continue to speak Spanish and to change America for a long time. (This segment originally aired on April 27.)