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For the past 20 years, president and director Gary Graffman has nurtured top talent at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music. Now 77, he's stepping down from his adminstrative posts and focusing once again on teaching piano.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki calls for an Iraqi committee to meet with the U.S. military to establish ground rules for raids on Iraqi homes. He said Iraq "totally rejects" conduct such as the reported killing of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines last fall in Haditha.

In his first one-on-one interview with the media since the start of the war in Iraq, Sec. of State Colin Powell talks about expanding the "coalition of the willing" -- and says he has no intentions of stepping down as the nation's top diplomat.

The Pfizer drug company agrees to pay a $430 million fine and plead guilty to illegal marketing practices, U.S. prosecutors say. The unprecedented fine comes after the company admitted that its Warner-Lambert unit promoted Neurontin, an epilepsy drug, for several unapproved uses. The drug remains a top seller for Pfizer, with 2003 sales of $2.7 billion. NPR's Snigdha Prakash reports.

Thomas Edison's music room went unused since the days when he was using it to record the famous at the turn of the century. Lately, some top names have been back there in West Orange, New Jersey, making modern-day wax cylinders, which use no microphone, no electricity.

In the second of our four-part series on managed health care, NPR's Patricia Neighmond takes a look at how a group of doctors in Southern California has banded together to take back control over medical decision-making from insurance companies. The doctors' new group practice grew out of frustration with a payment system that was permitting HMOs and other insurance companies to make decisions about when and how a patient would receive medical care. Analysts say the group is a model for other doctors who want to practice cost-efficient medicine and provide patients with top-quality care.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports on the most widely used school-based drug education program in the nation, Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known as DARE. DARE is a "just say no" curriculum taught in middle schools by police officers. Critics of the program say the DARE approach is too limited to be effective, especially with children who are likely to use drugs. Research released Monday by the US Department of Education confirms the program does not change kids' attitudes and behavior in the long term. But DARE is popular with schools and with Clinton's top drug advisors, who say it should continue to receive federal suppport.

Melissa Block and food writer Mark Bittman visit a farmer's market, and return with ingredients for a springtime meal that features an unusual use for beets.

It'd be hard to top the craftsmanship that went into the songs on Southeastern, but Isbell thinks he's done it.

James Nicholson, the top official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, says he will leave his post by Oct. 1. Under Nicholson, the agency was criticized for being unprepared to care for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.