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The son or daughter who can't get away. A nephew who is serving in Afghanistan. Perhaps, the favorite aunt who passed away. Guest host John Donvan talks with listeners about the people missing from their Thanksgiving table, and how they remember absent family and friends.

What goes on the dining table has never mattered as much to our lives as what goes on around it, says Adam Gopnik, a staff writer for The New Yorker. Guest host John Donvan talks with Gopnik about his new book, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food.

For a lot of the people in Joplin, Mo., this Thanksgiving is going to be one more to endure than to celebrate. But new dreams are slowly taking root here. While the losses have been terrible, they've left a lot of people more grateful to be alive than they were last Thanksgiving.

Tax evasion is a long tradition in Italy. But with the country facing a crippling debt crisis, the new prime minister hopes to convince markets that he can get tough on those who refuse to pay up, and perhaps change Italian attitudes about tax avoidance as well.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that 24 percent of people it surveyed expressed a negative view of the religion, with white evangelical Protestants most likely to characterize Mormonism as "non-Christian." That's a key part of the GOP base.

Officials say the first round of parliamentary elections will start on time next week despite serious unrest.

Before Rhode Island's General Assembly passed dramatic changes to the pension system, the state had one of the most underfunded pensions in the country. Many of the state's unions aren't happy with the changes and are gearing up for a legal fight.

China's "one-child" policy has repressed and stabilized the number of births, but the market for baby products has exploded. The growth is driven by rising incomes and the intense focus on the single child with interesting twists. For instance, baby formula sales have gone way up because people are now spending more money on foreign formula products because they no longer trust Chinese companies after the melamine poisoning of several years ago.

In Afghanistan, a media boom followed the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, but it hasn't been without problems. Watchdog groups report hundreds of cases of violence and intimidation against journalists, including murder. Afghan reporters have learned which topics are off limits, and they take great care to avoid offending the country's most powerful personalities.

Before you go shopping for a new computer this weekend consider this: Hard drive prices are going up. It's the result of the floods in Thailand, which produces about 45 percent of the world's hard drives. Many Thai factories have been crippled by the natural disaster.