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Richard Clarke, who served as the top White House counter-terrorism official under three presidents, says George W. Bush's administration did not consider terrorist threats to be urgent in its first seven months, despite Clarke's urgings. Speaking on Capitol Hill to a national commission investigating U.S. policies before Sept. 11, 2001, Clark said terrorism was given extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration. Also Wednesday, CIA Director George Tenet told the panel that terrorist intelligence was not properly integrated among different agencies. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

Judi Dench has won major acting awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Oscar, the Tony and six Oliviers (England's top theatrical honor). The British actress is famous for Shakespearean roles, but she's also played spy chief M in James Bond films and currently appears in the Vin Diesel science fiction action flick The Chronicles of Riddick. NPR's Susan Stamberg interviews Dench about the art of acting.

Before the 2011 film version of John Le Carre's spy novel, British director John Irvin directed the original 1979 series for the BBC. It starred George Smiley as the master spy, recalled from forced retirement to root out a mole in the British intelligence service's top ranks.

With more social conservatives in the race this time around, the Romney camp hopes the evangelical vote will splinter, propelling him to a top-two finish in Iowa.

The agency brought civil fraud charges Friday against two CEOs and four former top executives at the mortgage giants, accusing them of misleading investors about risky subprime loans.

Susan Stamberg gathers recommendations for the season's best books from independent booksellers Lucia Silva, Rona Brinlee and Daniel Goldin. This winter, their top picks range in subject from toasters to typeface, odd bookmarks to old Volkswagens, department stores to pasta design.

Ryan Crocker will depart in mid-summer "for health reasons," the State Department confirms. He has been the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan since July 2011.

Donna Summer, who sang some of the most memorable anthems of the disco era from "Love to Love You Baby" to "Bad Girls," has died after a long battle with cancer. She had a top 40 hit every year from 1976 to 1984, including the song she once told NPR she'd perform till the very end, "Last Dance."

President Mohammed Morsi's bold move to sack two top generals is generating much discussion about how it could be a decisive step toward democracy.

New York Times writer JASON DEPARLE. He covers poverty and social welfare issues for the Times. Recently DEPARLE has been writing about the disappearance of affordable housing. Government guidelines suggest that renters should be paying 30% of their income for housing, but many of our nations disabled and poor are paying 50, 60 and 70 percent of their income on housing. On top of that government subsidies for low-income housing have all but disappeared. DEPARLE's New York Times Magazine cover story about housing appeared on October 20, 1996. (THIS INTERVIEW CONTINUES INTO THE SECOND HALF OF THE