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The new CD by minimalist composer Terry Riley is a spiritual and personal journey for the composer. In Atlantis Nath, Riley uses common sounds such as street sounds, his keyboard playing and his voice to take the listener on a journey. Michelle Mercer has a review.

Commentator Stephen Kuusisto recalls a night in his childhood when he and some friends broke into an abandoned farmhouse in western New York state. The evening is tinged with anxiety about going to fight in the Vietnam War, since the boys all are teenagers.

Since the end of the Cold War, civilian contractors become vital to the military as armed forces shrink by more than a third. If America goes to war against Iraq, not everyone in battle will be in uniform -- and many civilians will be close to the frontlines. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

A federal judge has restored high school basketball standout LeBron James' eligiblity to play for his school. The young man who is expected to turn pro right out of high school was declared ineligible by the Ohio Athletic Association because he'd accepted valuable jerseys from a Cleveland sporting goods store, a violation of the code of conduct for high school athletes. NPR's Michele Norris speaks with Vincent Duffy of member station WKSU in Kent, Oh.

This week, New Jersey physicians are staying off the job to protest rising malpractice prices. In doing so, they join the ranks of doctors in several states who've taken similar action. President Bush and Congress are seriously considering putting caps on jury awards to try to bring expenses down. That is a very controversial idea. In this report Patricia Neighmond talks to experts about why expenses are rising.

He is also known as "?uestlove" of the hip-hop group The Roots. The Grammy award-winning sextet has six albums to its credit. Their latest CD is Phrenology. Their first single from the album is "Break You Off." One reviewer writes, "To fully savor the sound, you've got to commit to spending time with The Roots, to wallow in both the music and the message. There's Chuck Berry-style rock-and-roll, jazz fusion, funk, poetry, shoutouts to hip-hop pioneers, lyrical slaps upside the heads of money-mad rappers, black nationalism and some groove-laden neo-soul musings."

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman about his first feature film, Le Derniere Lettre, ("The Last Letter.") It's in French with English subtitles and has one actor, Catherine Samie. The film is a black and white adaptation of a short story by Soviet writer Vassily Grossman, about a letter written in 1941 by an elderly Jewish woman to her grown son, while living in a small Ukrainian village under Nazi occupation.

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports that several of the jurors who convicted a California man on marijuana charges last week took the unusual step this week of issuing a public apology. Grower Ed Rosenthal was convicted under federal law, which does not allow marijuana to be cultivated for any reason. During the trial, jurors were not told that Rosenthal was growing marijuana for medicinal purposes, which is allowed in California and eight other states. When they found out afterward, they called for a new trial.

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports that last night more than 2,600 hopeful homebuyers in Marin County, Calif., participated in a lottery for 351 affordable homes on an abandoned Army air field at Novato. Novato officials said they worked with developers for years to find a way to offer below-market homes that local firefighters, police and teachers could afford. The median home price in Marin County is $554,000.

NPR's Robert Siegel speaks with Stefan Fatsis, sportswriter for The Wall Street Journal about this weekend's National Basketball Association All-Star game in Atlanta. The game will feature Michael Jordan in, presumably, his final all-star appearance. A big topic of discussion among players is a petition by two 17-year-old Europeans to gain early entry into the league.