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The military rescues a U.S. Army prisoner of war in Iraq. The Pentagon confirms that 19-year-old Army Private First Class Jessica Lynch of Palestine, W.Va., has been returned to an allied-controlled area. Lynch was a supply clerk with a convoy that was ambushed on March 23 near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. NPR's Nick Spicer reports.

A prominent Democrat in the District of Columbia is pushing a flat tax proposal for the nation's capital, and Republican congressional leaders say it's a good idea. Proponents say it would encourage middle-class residents to stay in the city, and serve as a model for other urban areas, if it works. Critics say the Federal treasury would lose needed tax money. NPR's John Nielsen reports.

NPR's Mandalit Delbarco reports on fires that have destroyed dozens of homes throughout Southern California. Fires in the San Diego area, and outside Los Angeles, scared residents who'd been through catastrophic wildfires in 1993, but this year some safety measures--such as clearing brush around homes--may have helped reduce the number of damaged structures.

NPR's Richard Knox reports that snakebite antidote supplies are running very low this summer. In many areas, doctors have run out of the crucial medicine before patients have completed treatment. So far, no deaths are blamed on the shortage, but antivenom experts say it's only a matter of time. The shortfall arose when the manufacturer of the main antidote cut back production.

In Minneapolis, two businessmen are trying to raise money to start a new internet company. They plan to serve corporate clients, but they also want to provide jobs to people who live in their neighborhood, an area known for prostitution and drug-dealing. John Biewen of Minnesota Public Radio reports that the company initially attracted many investors -- until they found out where the company is located.

NPR's Ted Clark reports on the resignation of Secretary of State Warren Christopher and the expected departure of many on his foreign policy team. Who President Clinton picks to succeed Christopher will indicate whether Clinton's second term will follow the same tenuous foreign policy...or whether there will be new initiatives in Bosnia, the Middle East, Russia and China...and in the area of international peacekeeping.

Over the past few years, employees of high-tech firms in the San Francisco Bay Area have watched the value of their stock portfolios soar. Many of those workers are Generation X'ers who've never known a bear market. NPR's Elaine Korry sat down with three young investors to find out how they are riding out the downturn in the market.

The Pope John Paul II Cultural Center opens today in an area of Washington, D.C. known as the little Vatican. Alex Van Oss finds out what it means to create an interactive museum for the head of the Catholic Church. NOTE: Web Site at www.jp2cc.org. (3:45) (Note: this site will open in a new browser wi

NPR's Anne Garrels reports on today's bombing in a residential neighborhood of Baghdad. Iraqi officials say two cruise missiles struck a residential and shopping area, killing as many as 30 people. It's the worst single reported instance of civilian deaths since the U.S. bombing campaign began a week ago. U.S. military officials say they are investigating the incident.

After some of the worst civil disturbances in years, Protestant leaders in Northern Ireland met today with British Prime Minister John Major. Protestants have been protesting violently over the banning of a parade. Police decided to prevent the exclusively Protestant, two hundred-year-old Orange Order from parading through a predominantly Catholic area in its annual march.

Seismologists who have been studying tectonic plates beneath India were surprised by the location of the earthquake, because it happened in an area where fault lines had not been detected. As a result of the earthquake, the new seismographic information could have both scientific and political consequences. Host Lisa Simeone speaks with Jeffrey Park, professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University.

Raquel Maria Dillon reports Boston area critics of the Roman Catholic Church have turned their sites north, to the Bishop of Manchester, New Hampshire. John McCormack was a top aid to Cardinal Bernard Law, who stepped down last month as a result of the priest sex abuse scandal. The protesters say McCormack is also to blame for the abuse, and they want him to step down.

The new album 3 showcases Lafayette Gilchrist's maximalist jazz piano in a trio setting rather than with his seven-piece New Volcanoes band. Even in the more intimate arrangement, Gilchrist isn't afraid to make the box shout; this is jazz from artists influenced by everything from hip-hop to the D.C. area's distinctive go-go sound.

Accused sniper John Lee Malvo, 17, is ordered held without bail after a hearing Friday in Fairfax County, Va. A preliminary hearing was held earlier in the day in Prince William County, Va., for 41-year-old John Allen Muhammad, the other suspect in a string of killings in the Washington, D.C. area and the Deep South. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports.

Police departments around the country could have discovered possible connections between the Washington-area sniper shootings and other killings much sooner if they had been fully utilizing a national crime database. Robert Siegel talks about this with John Timoney, Chief Executive Officer of Beau, Dietl & Associates. Timoney was formerly Police Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department.

China's highest court threatens harsh new penalties -- including life in prison -- for anyone caught violating quarantine orders or otherwise intentionally spreading SARS. The move comes as China steps up efforts to battle SARS in rural areas, where poor conditions at health care facilities may make it easier for the virus to spread. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

One week after a tsunami killed tens of thousands in coastal areas of Indonesia's northern Aceh province, relief workers are only beginning to make headway. The scale of the disaster, and the need for aid, is staggering -- there are no vehicles to carrying needed supplies, and aid workers fear mass starvation if food supplies aren't distributed in the next several days. NPR's Adam Davidson reports.

In the final installment of his series on the disputed Himalayan region of Tibet, NPR's Rob Gifford reflects on how differently Tibet is viewed by those in China and those in the West. Chinese often see the area as a superstitious, backward land in need of economic development. Many Westerners see it as a spiritual Shangri-La that should be left alone. Tibetans are caught in the middle of these competing views.

A juvenile court judge in Fairfax County, Va., rules suspected Washington-area sniper John Lee Malvo can be tried as an adult for the murder of an FBI analyst in a Home Depot parking lot. He and another suspect are implicated in 12 other fatal shootings. Wednesday's ruling makes Malvo, 17, eligible for the death penalty. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

Iraq's health minister says more than 350 civilians have been killed since the war began, including 36 in Baghdad over the past 24 hours. Most of the victims died in an attack on a commercial district in the city; Iraqi officials blame the bombing on U.S. missiles, but the Pentagon says it did not target the area. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels.