APM Reports Documentaries

How has all the recent news about congressional travel changed the travel habits of those in Congress?

The United States is making huge demands on its military people, the toughest since the Vietnam War. But most soldiers during Vietnam were young, single men. Today, in the all-volunteer military, about half of all service people are married with children, so the burdens of fighting these wars are shared back home.

Over the past few years, private groups have payed for more than 4,800 trips by members of Congress at a cost of $14 million.

For many, globalization has meant rich countries getting richer at the expense of the poor. Today, it's not that simple.

Corruption skims billions from the global economy, locking millions of people in poverty. But a worldwide movement is fighting back.

Most children can be volatile at some point in their development, with no particular cause for worry. But at what point do irritability, mood swings, and tantrums constitute a mental illness? Up to half a million children are believed to have bipolar illness. This is the story of three of those children, their families, and the professionals who work with them.

The supermax prison was designed to incapacitate dangerous criminals by locking them down in stark isolation. But do they live up to their promise?

President Bush has admitted ordering intelligence agencies to electronically spy on American citizens without court oversight since 9/11. Such monitoring of suspected terrorists affects thousands of people. But unknown to most people, the government has also turned to the nation's burgeoning data industry to track millions of people in the name of homeland security. So for most Americans, there is no place to hide.

Five years after the hoopla and warnings about Y2K, many still dismiss it as a hoax, scam, or non-event. But in reality, Y2K was not only a real threat narrowly averted, it also led to changes in how we look at technology and economic shifts that are still being felt today. For the fifth anniversary of Y2K, we look at the history and the legacy of the millennium bug.

Thirty-eight states have elections for state courts around the country. These days, those races are getting more expensive, and can even run into the millions of dollars. Much of that money comes from special interests trying to elect candidates to the courts. That raises alarms bells about the independence of the judiciary, and calls for reform.