Search results for

U.S. forces in Tikrit capture three Saddam loyalists, including a bodyguard of the deposed Iraqi leader. And in their continuing search for weapons of mass destruction, U.S. troops find anti-tank mines, mortar rounds and hundreds of pounds of gunpowder buried in Tikrit. Hear NPR's Ivan Watson and Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

American military forces stage a major raid on a downtown Baghdad villa, killing several Iraqis. U.S. officials make no immediate comment on the target of the raid, but neighbors suspect the troops were looking for Saddam Hussein. The raid caps the deadliest weekend yet for U.S. troops since major hostilities ended. NPR's Eric Westervelt talks to NPR's Jacki Lyden.

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews New Beginnings (MaxJazz) the new CD by trumpeter Terell Stafford.

Host Steve Inskeep speaks with Jim Clupper, a librarian in Islamorada, Fla., about the town's monument to the victims of the nation's worst hurricane on record, which hit the Florida Keys in 1935. The memorial to the hundreds of victims is one of the sites featured in a book about not-so-famous, but noteworthy sites across the country catalogued in a book called James Dean Died Here: The Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks. (# Santa Monica Press; ISBN: 1891661310.)

The United States investigates whether Saddam Hussein's two sons were among four Iraqis killed in a four-hour gunfight at a house in Mosul in northern Iraq. According to an Army spokesman, all four men were "high value" targets and former military officials close to the regime. Hear NPR's Guy Raz.

As part of All Things Considered's summer series on street musicians, NPR's John Burnett travels to Jackson Square, in New Orleans, to listen as one busker makes beautiful music out of water and glass. Hear samples from The Glass Harper online.

With an unforgettable voice, good looks and the spirituality of gospel music roots, Sam Cooke soared to the top of the pop charts. On Morning Edition, NPR's Bob Edwards reports on how Cooke bridged the gap between rock and soul to become a music legend. Hear samples of newly reissued Cooke songs and the story of Cooke's triumphant return to New York's famed Copacabana nightclub.

The largest cemetery in the Arab world is located in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. The cemetery surrounds the Shrine of Imam Ali. It is a sacred site for all Shiites, and many of them bring relatives to be buried there. Hundreds of thousands of tombstones stretch as far as the eye can see. Locals call the cemetery the "Valley of Peace," but it has been the scene of violence as well. When the Shia uprising of 1991 began to collapse, many of the rebels fled to the cemetery, where they were brutally killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. Thousands of other Shiites died as a result of Saddam's repression, and many of them also lie in the cemetery. And thousands of those who died in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war are buried there as well. The cemetery grew to eight times its previous size during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Kate Seelye reports.

Arab television stations air a new tape, allegedly from Saddam Hussein, in which the speaker mourns the killing last week of Saddam's two eldest sons. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, senators grill Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on the Bush administration's failure to provide clear guidance on the costs of the U.S. mission in Iraq. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.

The past 10 years have brought a surge of young women into the nation's juvenile justice system. In Part 2 of the series Girls and the Juvenile Justice System, NPR's Michele Norris visits a Boston detention center, originally designed to house delinquent boys, now struggling to cope with a new population of girls.