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More goods are being produced in American factories that in recent decades, but employment in those same facilities is falling. Adam Davidson, co-founder and co-host of Planet Money, a co-production of NPR and This American Life, discusses the decline of American manufacturing jobs and looks at why the jobs crisis will be so difficult to solve. He's the author of "Making It in America," in the January/February issue of The Atlantic.

ProPublica’s Kim Barker and Al Shaw take a look at the role Super-PACs are playing in the 2012 election.

Last month, the Arab League sent a team of observers to Syria, where the government has been cracking down on protesters. Colum Lynch, who writes the Turtle Bay blog for Foreign Policy and reports on the United Nations for the Washington Post, explains what internal Arab League memos reveal about the mission in Syria. Plus, a look at why Russia opposed the United Nations Security Council measure to condemn the Syrian government during a meeting on Tuesday.

Delphine Halgand, the Washington, DC, director of Reporters Without Borders, looks at the recent report on international press freedom issued by Reporters Without Borders and examine why the United States dropped 27 places to number 47 this year.

Earlier this week, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit of nine European countries. In Greece, the government and private creditors continue to meet to renegotiate the debt there. On today’s first Backstory, Stuart Kirk, the head of the Lex column in The Financial Times, discusses this week’s negotiations, why many in Europe are now bracing for a Greek default, and how Europe is trying to cope with its continuing debt crisis in the new year.

Kate Andersen Brower, reporter for Bloomberg News, takes a look at the size and scope of President Barack Obama’s reelection apparatus and his administration’s recent decision to block the Keystone XL Pipeline.

The U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, turned 10 years old yesterday. Carol Rosenberg, Miami Herald reporter, looks back at a decade of Gitmo.

Quinn Norton, a contributor to Wired magazine’s Threat Level blog, talks about the online collective Anonymous.

Over the last few weeks, thousands of Hungarians have been in the streets, protesting the government’s changes to the country’s constitution. On today’s second Backstory, journalist Adam LeBor joins us from Budapest to discuss why the new constitution has raised concerns within Hungary and around the world, and why the changes could affect the country’s access to economic aid from the IMF and the EU.

The Atlantic sturgeon has been around for more than 85 million years, but years of overfishing, habitat loss, and warming ocean temperatures have pushed the species to the brink of extinction. OnEarth contributing editor Bruce Stutz talks about the efforts to save the sturgeon.

There are police forces tucked away in federal departments not typically associated with law enforcement, like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Bureau of Land Management, and even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wall Street Journal reporter Gary Fields explains why these agencies have police powers and why the number of departmental police officers have swelled over the last few decades.

Liza Goitein, co-director of the Liberty & National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, joins us to discuss the trial of Bradley Manning as it wraps up.

Last weekend, thousands gathered in Moscow to protest for new parliamentary elections after accusations of fraud and widespread vote falsification were made. On Monday, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov announced that he would challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the presidential election in the spring. And Wednesday, the speaker of Parliament—an ally of Putin’s—resigned. On today’s Backstory, Stephen Sestanovich, George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor in the Practice of International Diplomacy at Columbia University, talks about what this week’s events say about Russia’s political landscape.

Declan McCullagh, a senior writer and chief political correspondent for CNET, takes a look at some of the concerns surrounding the Stop Online Piracy Act. The House is set to take action on the bill today.

In the late 1990s, Argentina spiraled into a recession not unlike our own. That economic crisis also spawned the “piquetero movement,” where activists pioneered a system of strategic roadblocks as a form of protest. Nikolas Kozloff, author of Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left, discusses what the piqueteros did and didn’t accomplish and what lessons Occupy Wall Street can learn from the movement.

On today's second Backstory, we'll look at the latest efforts to stabilize the Eurozone as the debt crisis there continues. Peter Spiegel, Brussels Bureau Chief for the Financial Times, gives us an update on the first day of meetings of European leaders in Brussels, and whether a proposed overhaul of the European treaty is likely to find support there.

Drones are a key component of U.S. military operations all over the world—in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. But, a number of critics question their efficacy and their expanded use on the battlefield and off. Daniel Swift explores the nature of aerial warfare—both manned and pilotless—in his article "Conjectural Damage: A History of Bombing." It appears in the November issues of Harper’s magazine.

Arundhati Roy discusses the Maoist insurgency in India and the fight against corporations looking to exploit the rare minerals buried in tribal lands. In Walking with the Comrades, Roy takes readers to the unseen front lines of this ongoing battle, chronicling her months spent living with the rebel guerillas in the forests. In documenting their local struggles, Roy addresses the larger question of whether global capitalism will tolerate any societies existing outside of its control.

Adam Winkler examines America's four-centuries-long political battle over gun control and the right to bear arms. Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America is centered on the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which invalidated a law banning handguns in the nation's capital, and looks at the Founding Fathers, the Second Amendment, gun rights advocates and gun control lobbyists, and the debate over guns.

Carl Colby talks about his father, William Colby, who was director of the CIA from 1973 to 1976, a tumultuous time in the agency's history that saw the resignation of Richard Nixon, the implosion of the Vietnam War and the Church Committee Hearings. Carl Colby directed the film "The Man Nobody Knew," about Colby's tenure at the agency and his life before and after.

"The Man Nobody Knew" is playing at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and the Quad Cinema.