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A snappy new CD by the Charlie Hunter Quintet features harmonica, sax, trombone, drums, and guitar, underpinned by a funky bass line — but there's no bass player listed in the liner notes. That's because Hunter does double duty, playing bass and guitar lines with his custom-made eight-string guitar. NPR's Liane Hansen talks with Hunter about his unique playing style.

President Bush underscores tax day by renewing his call for another round of tax cuts. Bush wanted $726 billion more in cuts, but the Republican-controlled Congress set the target lower. A poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government indicates Americans don't see a need for more tax relief. NPR's David Welna reports.

In a further sign the U.S. is shifting its focus in the Persian Gulf from fighting to nation building, Gen. Tommy Franks went to the Iraqi capital for the first time since the start of the war. Meanwhile the Pentagon's comptroller estimates the cost of the Iraq war so far at $20 billion. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.

NPR's Michael Sullivan reports that while security remains an issue in the southern port city of Basra in Iraq, the real issue for the city's million residents is water. A month after the war in Iraq began, there still is no running water in Basra and what fresh water there is is being trucked in to be distributed, by the bucket, by British Marines.

Alan Cheuse reviews the novel Shelter from the Storm by Michael Mewshaw. Cheuse says Mewshaw is a thinking person's thriller writer.

The CDC revises estimates of the number of SARS cases in the United States. The new number is much lower than previous counts, since the CDC no longer includes in the total those "suspected" of having the illness. NPR's Joanne Silberner reports.

NPR's Kate Seelye in Damascus reports on the large Iraqi community in Syria. Many are political exiles; others came on a religious pilgrimage. All plan to return home, where many fear an uncertain future.

Huge crowds of Iraqi Shiite Muslims converge in Karbala, Iraq. They are making a pilgrimage for one of Shiite Islam's holiest celebrations -- one banned for decades by Saddam Hussein. Some Shiite leaders hope pilgrims will demonstrate against the United States. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports, and NPR's Melissa Block talks to Mahmoud M. Ayoub, professor of Islamic studies and comparative religion at Temple University.

A new survey says most Americans think high-income people don't pay their fair share of taxes. Yet most Americans also want the government to dump a tax paid almost entirely by the wealthy: the estate tax. These findings are in a poll by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government. NPR's John Ydstie reports.

NPR's Melissa Block talks with NPR's Jackie Northam reporting from Baghdad.