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NPR's Nina Totenberg continues her series on the papers of former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who died in 1999. The archives reveal the justices acting with extreme care in writing about school prayer -- to the point of gleaning opinions about opinions.

A new study finds that high-intensity treatment with drugs known as statins may help keep heart arteries from getting clogged with cholesterol. The results -- dramatically lower cholesterol levels -- may in turn prevent heart attacks and other heart disease. The study was released Monday by the New England Journal of Medicine. NPR's Richard Knox reports.

Eight months before the U.S. presidential election, likely voters are paying unusually close attention to the contest ahead, and they're polarized in their views, according to the latest NPR poll. The poll finds that if the election were held today, voters would be almost evenly split between President Bush and Sen. John Kerry. NPR's Mara Liasson reports.

NPR's Scott Horsley sends an audio postcard from Sen. John Kerry's campaign plane, where staffers, journalists and sometimes the presidential candidate himself kill time by bowling oranges down the aisle.

NPR's Liane Hansen offers an appreciation of the late Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri, with excerpts of two of his works.

The Hubble Space Telescope provides astronomers with what they believe to be the edge of the Big Bang. Space Telescope Science Institute officials say the deep-space view was derived from focusing the telescope on a single point for 1 million seconds. The resulting image is being termed the Ultra Deep Field. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

Commentator Walter Cronkite marks the 50th anniversary of a watershed event in television news. In 1954, Edward R. Murrow's See It Now series took on the tactics of Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy, who accused many in government and media of being Communist dupes. Cronkite says the pioneering broadcast by Murrow and his producer, Fred Friendly, helped pierce the bubble of McCarthy's demagoguery.

Balloting appeared to go smoothly in Tuesday's four Southern Democratic primaries, despite concerns about new voting machines and the accuracy of vote counts. Election experts say they expect a lot of legal scrutiny of this year's voting procedures. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

Sen. John Kerry takes another step toward clinching the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday with victories in Southern states. Kerry, who no longer faces substantial competition in his bid to oppose President George Bush, had campaigned heavily in Florida, a likely November battleground. Hear NPR's David Welna.

With his win in Tuesday's Illinois primary, Sen. John Kerry officially secures the Democratic presidential nomination. He now faces the tough task of defining himself clearly to voters, as attack ads from President Bush's re-election campaign portray Kerry as weak on national defense. Hear NPR's David Welna.