Reporters' Notebook

JESS CAGLE,who covers the movie industry for TIME, wrote this week's story on Tom Cruise, who stars in the new film Minority Report.

"Tell people in Hollywood that you're interviewing Tom Cruise, and you'll get two responses. One is, 'He's the nicest guy in the world.' The other is, 'Is he gay?' Interviewing him last week, the first thing I learned is that he likes to know whom he's dealing with. I was riding in the passenger seat of his Porsche, when he suddenly said, 'You speak Russian, don't you? Someone told me that.' The information was correct. Maybe it was a message (I'm watching; don't try any funny business), or maybe he's just a guy who does his homework. Hard to tell with Cruise, who's known for being the most guarded, in-control movie star on the planet. I know one journalist who did an interview with him, then received in the mail a complete transcript of their conversation simply labeled 'For Your Convenience.' The divorce, Scientology, Penelope Cruz--he's addressed all those subjects, and no question can surprise him.

"So I tried to get a little closer and observe him in his natural habitats. Hence the ride in his car, a visit to his estate and a tour of a tutoring program where he donates a lot of time and money. Yes, he is a nice guy. I can't say he completely let his guard down, but he's remarkably engaging. He likes to laugh, and you like him for it. And no, I don't think he's gay. Not just because I've been gay for all of my 36 years and have a pretty good gaydar. The real giveaway is the baseball cap he wears backward. Any gay man in Hollywood knows that that look is definitely over."

JAMES NACHTWEY, CHRIS MORRIS, JOHN STANMEYER AND ALEXANDRA BOULAT, clockwise from top left, traveled Afghanistan from Kabul to Herat to Bamiyan for this week's photographic epic on a country emerging from the chaos of war.

All four have long experience with the troubled nation, having had assignments there before and after Sept. 11, 2001. They bring that perspective to their images, capturing the different life Afghanistan has been assuming as it attempts to relegate the strictures of the Taliban to the past.

GHULAM HASNAIN, our Karachi-based reporter, and TIM PADGETT, our Miami bureau chief, canvassed South Florida's Muslim community for the story on Jose Padilla, a.k.a. Abdullah al-Muhajir.

PADGETT "While a reporter in Chicago in the 1980s, I often covered the city's Latino street-gang culture. So when the Jose Padilla story broke last week, I felt as though I knew this guy. What I wasn't as familiar with, however, was the Muslim culture Jose had embraced here in Florida in the early '90s, especially the extremist brand of Islam he later adopted. As a result, to explain this tragic turn his life took, I relied on Islamic community leaders in Broward County and colleagues like Hasnain to help me understand the thuggish subculture that is perverting Islam--which turned out to be just another, albeit deadlier, street gang for Jose to join."

HASNAIN "Back home in Karachi, where I was born and raised, Muslim extremist groups always eye mosques and seminaries for the new talent. When I was asked to help report the Padilla story last week while visiting the U.S., it was both shocking and painful to hear and see the same thing happening thousands of miles away in Florida. Amazingly, the tactics they employ in Florida to recruit future terrorists are similar, and the victims match the same profile. But unlike Karachi, where people take these things for granted, here in Florida the Muslim community is now awake to the dangers it is confronted with and now seems to want to work to keep this mess out of their neighborhoods."