Jimmy Carter was the 39th US President. Significant foreign policy accomplishments of his administration included the Panama Canal treaties, the Camp David Accords, the treaty of peace between Egypt and Israel, the SALT II treaty with the Soviet Union, and the establishment of US diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. He championed human rights throughout the world. On the domestic side, the administration's achievements included a comprehensive energy program conducted by a new Department of Energy and major environmental protection legislation, including the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. In 1982, he founded The Carter Center. Carter Center fellows, associates, and staff join with President Carter in efforts to resolve conflict, promote democracy, protect human rights, and prevent disease and other afflictions. On December 10, 2002, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Carter "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development."

Ray Suarez joined *The NewsHour* in October 1999 as a Washington-based Senior Correspondent. Suarez has more than thirty years of varied experience in the news business. He came to *The NewsHour* from National Public Radio where he had been host of the nationwide, call-in news program "Talk of the Nation" since 1993. Prior to that, he spent seven years covering local, national, and international stories for the NBC-owned station, WMAQ-TV in Chicago. He is the author most recently of a book examining the tightening relationship between religion and politics in America, *The Holy Vote: The Politics of Faith in America*. Suarez also wrote *The Old Neighborhood: What We Lost in the Great Suburban Migration* (Free Press), and has contributed to several other books, including *What We See* (New Village Press, 2010), *How I Learned English* (National Geographic, 2007), *Brooklyn: A State of Mind* (Workman, 2001), *Local Heroes* (Norton, 2000), *Saving America's Treasures* (National Geographic, 2000), and *Las Christmas* (Knopf, 1998). Suarez currently hosts the monthly radio program "America Abroad" for Public Radio International, and the weekly politics program "Destination Casa Blanca" for Hispanic Information Telecommunications Network, HITN TV.