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The recording industry's trade association says 2002 amounts to a terrible year for the major labels. According to preliminary estimates, the number of records sold this year may have fallen by 10 percent. That follows a 10-percent decline in 2001 and a seven-percent drop the year before. NPR's Rick Karr reports.

State lawmakers failed to override the governor's veto of a controversial measure that would have lowered state income taxes. Although Republicans had supermajorities in the House and Senate, Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon was able to rally school districts, which feared their budgets would suffer from the decline in general revenue.

Those people who have contracted the H7N9 virus have become very sick. And unlike the older bird flu virus, this one shows some adaptation to mammals, making it a matter of concern. But it doesn't make chickens sick, posing unique difficulties in fighting this kind of flu.

Beloit, Wis., resident Joan Salzberg, discovered a green-breasted mango hummingbird feeding in her backyard. The bird is rarely, if ever, seen north of Mexico. It had clearly lost its way. Thanks to a concerted rescue effort — just in time for winter — the little hummer now calls a Chicago zoo home.

Host Lisa Simeone takes a tour of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian's Museum of American Art with curator Larry Bird, charting the birth and boom of the do-it-yourself art form called Paint-By-Number. She also has a hand in painting an outdoor banner on the Museum's facade, 40 feet up.

Exotic Newcastle Disease is a highly contagious virus that attacks birds, especially domestic poultry like chickens and turkeys. Five southern California counties are under quarantine as officials struggle to contain an outbreak. The disease threatens California's three-billion-dollar poultry industry. Alex Cohen of member station KQED reports.

Moses Asch spent years collecting and compiling the world's sounds. Working through a number of small record labels including Folkways Recordings, Asch explored a world of sound -- not just music, but birds, bugs and machines. Asch died in 1986. But now the Smithsonian has put his entire collection of sounds on the Web.

Two decades ago, labor unions warned that the North American Free Trade Agreement would drive away U.S. jobs and push wages down. Today, unions feel as strongly as ever that NAFTA was a mistake for U.S. workers, but quantifying the factors behind the decline in the middle class is no simple matter.

Farmers survive by sending food to cities, and when they die their assets often leave just as fast, going to heirs living in urban areas. That financial drain helps accelerate small town decline. So, some states are working systematically to keep a fraction of that outward bound money — billions each year — at home.

As the world gets hotter, plants and animals have been trying to adjust by changing when they bloom, migrate, molt, and breed. For some species, these adjustments come off nicely and for others they don't. One European bird's chicks now hatch at a time of year when there's not much around for Mom to feed them.

A day US Airways pilot safely landed a plane on the Hudson River and saved the lives of more than 150 people. Ben Berman, an airline pilot and chief of major investigations for the National Transportation and Safety Board from 2000 to 2001, talks about how pilots are trained to handle bird strikes and water landings.

Hear and see video of the band, recorded live in concert from the Sixth and I Synagogue in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3. This stunning performance includes songs from the band's new album, The Crying Light, as well as its 2005 breakthrough, I Am a Bird Now. Video of the performance is provided by Pitchfork.tv.

Critic Bob Mondello says Brad Bird's animated kitchen comedy, about a Paris rat who longs to be a haute-cuisine chef, "isn't just amusing, it's downright mouth-watering" — even as it's "engagingly down-to-earth" and temptingly funny about everything from critics to romantic mishaps.

It would be impossible to put all of Charlie Parker's significant recordings on one album, but Yardbird Suite: The Ultimate Charlie Parker Collection comes close. This two-CD set contains most of Bird's 1945 bebop sessions, as well as "Ko-Ko," one of NPR's "100 Most Important Works of the 20th Century."

NPR's Gerry Hadden reports a significant decline in the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, the number of arrests at the busiest illegal border crossing, at Douglas, Ariz., is down 40-percent in the first six weeks of this year, compared to the same period last year.

NPR's John Ydstie reports the unemployment rate declined by two-tenths of a percent in April to its lowest rate in more than a year. The key labor market rate now stands at 5.4 percent. Analysts judged the monthly employment report weak though, because business payrolls expanded only slightly

Commentator Marianne Jennings says that in the wars of the competitive new global economy, U.S. employees have become the casualties. American workers have become the most expendable resource a business has. But Jenningsa this kind of "quick fix" is no real answer for declining profits, and she wonders what it does to the consumers trust in a company.

NPR's John Ydstie reports on another sell-off in the stock market. All three major indices were down substantially. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 141 points at one point, before recovering somewhat. The disappointing earnings of high-tech companies was again cited as the reason for the equity market's decline.

Dana Corp., one of the nation's largest auto-parts manufacturers, seeks protection from creditors in federal bankruptcy court. The company had declining revenue, a result of a market share loss at Ford and GM. Dana's shares plunged this week after the company failed to make bond payments worth $20.8 million.

About half of African-American women in the U.S. are obese, compared to 30 percent of white women. Black women not only carry more weight, but they start piling on extra pounds years before their white counterparts. Around age 8 or 9, girls become less active, and the decline is steepest for black girls.