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The Bush administration is raising the national terrorism alert from yellow to orange, signaling a "high risk" of terrorist attack. A government official says the move is based on an increase in intelligence that an attack may occur as Muslims mark the haj, a five-day ritual that begins Sunday. NPR News reports.

Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel is undeniably staggering. But his Dune also feels rudimentary, as if he's managed his source material without fully mastering it.

The books of Jill Connor Browne -- better known as the Sweet Potato Queen -- are shooting up the best-seller lists. She recently packed a Washington, D.C. bookstore with converts of her sassy, irreverent humor. Her latest book, The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook and Financial Planner, is already a hit. Listen to her entire hour-long monolouge from the Politics and Prose bookstore.

La Niña leading up to the winter months follows an early end to what has been an active rainy season.

Two hundred years ago this year, Captain Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and the Corps of Discovery set out on their 7,000-mile, two-year trek across the wilderness of the new West. The explorers kept meticulous diaries -- including details of what they ate. Now a new cookbook with authentic recipes gives readers a taste of what what the Corps cooked on their journey.

The Canadian government is turning back many of the hundreds of Pakistanis at the U.S. border. The men seeking asylum in Canada say they're afraid they'll be detained if they register with the U.S. government as required. Officials at the United Nations High Commission on Refugees are calling on the Bush administration to stop the detentions, at least in cases where families are left stranded when their men are taken into custody.

The Pentagon puts bombers on alert for possible deployment near North Korea. The apparent message is that the Bush administration is not too distracted by Iraq to respond to a threat on the Korean peninsula. But the administration says it's committed to a diplomatic solution to North Korea's renewed pursuit of nuclear weapons. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

The California Supreme Court has accepted a case that schools hope will help them walk the fine post-Columbine line between students' free speech rights and the need for school safety. The court is considering a case from San Jose in which a student was expelled and prosecuted for writing what authorities called "threatening poetry." NPR's Richard Gonzales reports.

NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty has an update on a string of lawsuits regarding the posting of the Ten Commandments on government property.

NPR's Margot Adler visited a community in Brooklyn, New York that is home to many of the Pakistanis who traveled north to seek asylum in Canada. Thousands more have left their homes in the United States for other destinations.

Statehouses across the nation struggle to achieve break-even budgets under the challenge of a weak economy. Many already have tapped "rainy day" funds, dismissed workers, and cut back their spending for education, health care and services to deal with shortfalls in this year's budget. NPR's Kathleen Schalch reports.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Chinese political dissident Xu Wenli, about his imprisonment as a dissident in China and his release to the United States about a month ago. Xu was arrested in 1998 after attempting to organize an opposition political party, the China Democracy Party.

Telemarketing agencies often invoke free speech in defending their right to call you just as you're picking up the dinner fork -- though earlier this year, at least one company promised to change its "cold calling" tactics. Commenator Tom Mabe makes a living turning the tables on telemarketers -- at least that's how he sees it. He waits for companies to call his number, then plays pranks on them. He then records his jokes and sells them on CD. Now that cold-calling is being phased out, he's worried.

The leaders of Britain and France meet but fail to resolve differences on Iraq. France wants to give U.N. arms inspections more time -- and has veto power on the Security Council. And in an interview on British TV, Iraq's Saddam Hussein denies any connection with al Qaeda terrorists. Hear from NPR's Nick Spicer, NPR's Robert Siegel, and New Yorker writer Jeffrey Goldberg.

The Pentagon will ask Congress for relief from six environmental laws, including the Clean Air and Endangered Species acts. Defense officials say the regulations protecting threatened plants and animals on military property are compromising combat readiness. NPR's Elizabeth Arnold reports.

As NASA officials study data and debris from space shuttle Columbia, the initial focus is on an accident at liftoff that may have caused a chain of problems that led to catastrophe. But experts say little could have been done to rescue the ship, even if launch problems had been considered a threat to the mission. NPR's Larry Abramson reports.

NPR's Michele Norris talks with Boston University History professor Robert Dallek about everything President George W. Bush has to juggle at this time, and compares it to other Presidents in history. Dallek is the author of Hail to the Chief: The Making and Unmaking of American Presidents.

Thousands of mourners honor the space shuttle Columbia crew at a memorial service at Johnson Space Center in Houston. President Bush consoles survivors and NASA workers. NPR's John Burnett reports.

Secretary of State Colin Powell tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the Iraqi weapons matter will be brought to conclusion "within weeks, one way or another." Meantime, there's skeptical reaction from France and many Muslim countries to Powell's U.N. presentation on Iraq Wednesday. Hear reports from NPR's Michele Kelemen, NPR's Nick Spicer and Khaled Al-Maeena, editor-in-chief of Arab News.

NASA's investigation into the Columbia disaster is wide open, the agency saying there's insufficient evidence that damaged heat tiles caused the crash. Meanwhile, another memorial service is held for the crew, and future manned science missions come under scrutiny as critics argue that most of the work doesn't need humans at all. Hear from NPR's Richard Harris and NPR's Joe Palca.

In a story broadcast on Morning Edition on Jan. 22, 2002, National Public Radio said it had called the Traditional Values Coalition to ask if that group had been contacted by the FBI, investigating the mailing of anthrax to Senate offices. This report violated NPR editorial principles. No one had told our reporter that the Traditional Values Coalition was a suspect in the anthrax mailing. No facts were available then or since then to suggest that the group had any role in the anthrax mailing. NPR deeply regrets this mistake and apologizes for any false impression that the coalition was involved in this investigation.

On Oct. 25, 1921, one of the most destructive hurricanes that the Tampa Bay area experienced hit the region. The National Weather Service took a look back at the Category 3 storm.

The White House and Congress react to North Korea's suggestion it might launch pre-emptive attacks should it feel threatened by the United States. The administration calls the threat "saber rattling." But senior Democrats in the Senate demand the situation be treated as a crisis. NPR's David Welna reports.

The United States "burned" some intelligence sources when Secretary Powell told the U.N. Security Council yesterday what those had revealed. But American intelligence agencies believe the sources were not of great importance and contend that the loss of sources was outweighed by the need to convince the world that Iraq still conceals illegal weapons programs. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.

Scientific research has always been one of the main arguments for developing NASA's manned space flight program and the International Space Station. But as the future of the program comes under scrutiny in the wake of the Columbia disaster, critics argue that most of the work doesn't require humans at all. NPR's Joe Palca reports.