Hugo Chavez has died of cancer, and to the end he refused to say what type of cancer it was. As we reported last May, Chavez had metastatic rhabdomyosarcoma, an aggressive cancer that the Venezuelan strongman lived with much longer than he was expected to. That's what our source, who...

It seems impossible to believe that in a country with 12 million people looking for work, there are nearly 3.7 million open jobs in America, right now. But that's what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says, and a chunk of those unfilled jobs -- up to 275,000 depending whom you...

There's been a lot written recently about Iron Dome -- Israel's high-tech missile defense system that hit the world stage during Israel's eight-day conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Its unprecedented success rate: Intercepting eight out of 10 rockets launched just miles away. Its rapid development: Iron Dome went...

Caught my old friend Billy Joe Shaver's gig last week at New York's "Hill Country."

What a hoot. Sheer down-home grit, grin, groan and guzzle, Texas style. Only thing missing was the chicken wire. (There are still joints in Texas where in the shank of the evening they drop down...

A college degree is the key to realizing the American dream, well worth the financial sacrifice because it is supposed to open the door to a world of opportunity. But the cost of going to college has never been so high, and the value of having that diploma has never...

The dynamic of the race for the presidency has shifted; the contours have changed.

For a long while this year, the following was the more or less consensus assessment: Republicans had an excellent chance of winning because of the economy, especially the jobs picture. When Mitt Romney won the...

Among the many important subjects you won't hear discussed in the U.S. Presidential campaign is Europe. One reason is that foreign policy rarely moves votes in our elections. Any talk about Europe in particular -- unless it directly involves high finance or war and peace -- risks inducing narcolepsy among...

This was a question I put to congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Thomas Mann, co-authors of the book It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism.

Both Ornstein and Mann, self-described independents, are well respected in their...

For so many of us, this past holiday weekend was about BBQs, pool parties and celebrating the beginning of summer. The fact that it was Memorial Day seemed, once again, to be an afterthought. Yet we remain at war, a fact that has fallen dangerously out of our national consciousness....

If you want to know the key to how television news is supposed to work, I offer you the example of Michael Rosenbaum, for decades a dear friend and colleague who lost his battle with brain cancer this past Thursday. He had just turned 64, still so young with so...

Two weeks ago, I traveled to the Persian Gulf, and made the transit through the Strait of Hormuz to the Arabian Sea. My host was the U.S. Navy, and the ride through the Strait was aboard the mighty USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier that is part of two carrier...

Is New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to reverse course, offer himself for the GOP Presidential nomination? Some heavy-money Republicans want him to and are not bashful about saying so, at least in private. It's a sure-fire signal that many party leaders feel their nominating process has become a circus.

...

If you want a simple shorthand for the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., I can do it in two words: Don Berwick.

Some of you may be nodding your head in vigorous agreement. Others of you may say, oh there's Dan carrying water for the Obama administration....

Okay, okay, cue the snickering comments from the legions of digital cognoscenti.  "Hey Dan, there's also something called a mobile phone," I can hear some of you saying. But for someone who was raised in an era when feedback had to be typed up or written out longhand and sent...

No other state has experienced the dizzying heights of the housing boom or the depths of the subsequent bust quite like California. Today, four metro areas in the Golden State have the highest foreclosure rates in the country, eclipsing -- for the first time -- even Las Vegas, Nevada. In...

I recently finished an investigation into what's being called one of the largest cases of human trafficking in U.S. history. The project was eye-opening because, before starting, I thought of the crime of human trafficking as inherently violent -- women snatched off the street at gunpoint and forced to sell...

There have been numerous reports, including on our program, Dan Rather Reports, about the decline of the honeybee. They've been dying off in huge numbers. The cause has been lumped under a title called "Colony Collapse Disorder" or CCD. But now scientists are telling...

Tuesday's attacks in Kabul are certainly a dispiriting reminder that 10 years after the first American fighters arrived in Afghanistan to oust al Qaeda and its host Taliban government, the country is far from secure. Today, there has been a flurry of reporting suggesting that the spectacular attacks on the...

I had just turned 10-years-old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and plunged America into World War II. I can still remember my father putting on his hat as he headed out the door to walk to the city bus stop to go downtown to the local recruiting station. It...

The news is grim, and you don't have to be a newshound to know that. It seems that all trend lines are pointing in the wrong direction -- whether it's economic disaster (domestic and international), mounting death totals in Afghanistan (and even Iraq), London in flames, the promise of the...