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NPR's Alex Chadwick spoke with Robert Dwan, who helped create one of the most popular radio and television programs of all time, You Bet Your Life starring Groucho Marx. Dwan has written a new book about the 14 years the show was on the air, and provides some out-takes that weren't originally broadcast because of the prevailing censorship at the time. (8:32-9:32) {Stations: The book is: As Long as They're Laughing: Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life, by Robert Dwan, published by Midnight Marquee Press, Baltimore, www.midmar.com}

A new instance of cultural cross-pollination between Japan and America debuts Thursday night: Afro Samurai. The animated series, which will air on Spike TV, stars Samuel L. Jackson and features music by the RZA.

Jimmie Dale Gilmore's new album — his seventh — is called Come on Back and it's a memorial to his late father. He died of ALS in 2000. The album includes version of his dad's favorite songs like Pick Me Up on Your Way Down and Walkin' The Floor Over You. Gilmore was born, raised and lives in Texas. He has been recording solo albums since 1988, when he released Fair and Square.

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Philip Roth has been a favorite of readers since his memoir Goodbye, Columbus emerged to help define the culture of postwar America. Now the Library of America is releasing Roth's books — a rare step for a living author.

What was once a sleepy little airbase in southern Spain is now the busiest base in the U.S. Air Force. The Moron base is the main transit point between the United States and Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of tons of war supplies, tanker planes and squadrons of fighters now pass through Moron. It's a vital link in the U.S. supply chain -- but it's not very popular with many Spaniards.

Steven Soderbergh's Bubble is the source of much hand-wringing in Hollywood. But what has entertainment executives agitated isn't the film's story -- about a murderous love triangle at a doll factory -- but the way it's being released. Columnist Jonathan Bing writes for Variety magazine.

In a story that has enthralled many Italians, the pretender to the Italian throne, Victor Emmanuel, has been jailed over his alleged involvement in a sex scandal. The prince prefers to stay in jail rather than be granted house arrest in a nearby rented villa -- because, he says, there is no air conditioning. The lead investigator in the case, Henry John Woodcock, has become a minor celebrity. He is a Neapolitan with an English father. Transcribed wiretaps that have been published by the media reveal an underworld of right-wing politicians promising showgirls jobs in TV in exchange for sex -- which is said to take place inside the foreign ministry.

President Bush names Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to replace Porter Goss as director of the CIA, touching off what may be a tough confirmation battle. Several members of Congress have criticized a controversial eavesdropping program that Hayden ran as director of the National Security Agency.

More than a decade ago, the Glenview Naval Air Station, near Chicago, was closed after nearly 60 years. But the town found a way to thrive -- and it serves as a model for communities that face base closures today.

James Avery is best known as Philip Banks, the wealthy uncle of Will Smith's character in the 1990s TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. But his work encompasses a broader range, from movies to voicing animation to his latest role in a California stage production of William Shakespeare's Othello.