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President Bush's solid performance in recent polls shows support for his handling of foreign policy, according to members of his campaign. Despite criticisms stemming from the Sept. 11 commission hearings and Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack, Bush's approval rating has remained steady, and he has gained ground on likely Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry. NPR's Don Gonyea reports.

He is the author of the memoir, Blue Blood that begins with his first days on the street as a cop in the New York Police Department and goes back three generations. His great-grandfather was an "officer of dubious integrity" during the Tammany-era NYPD. Conlon also wrote the "Cop Diary" columns in The New Yorker and is a graduate of Harvard. One reviewer writes, "No one has written a book that grabs readers by the scruff of the neck and tells them what the life of a cop is really like as well as Edward Conlon."

Russia says it will airlift hundreds of its citizens out of Iraq beginning Thursday. The move comes despite the release earlier this week of three Russian and five Ukrainian hostages. Recent kidnappings of foreign nationals have prompted several governments to urge their citizens to leave Iraq. Hear NPR's Nick Spicer.

The Bush administration reiterates its intentions to follow the planned Iraq policy and public hearings on Sept. 11 focus on law enforcement and government structure. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times.

Speaking to the nation and the White House press corps at a rare prime time news conference, President Bush says "the consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable." He pledges that a U.S.-led effort there will not fail, but he vows to stick to a June 30 deadline to transfer power to an Iraqi government.

NPR's Matt Hackworth reports on an archaeologist in Chicago using volunteers and a Web site to help recover artifacts missing from Iraq's National Museum.

Health officials are concerned about the new popularity of using ultrasound technology for prenatal portraits. The Food and Drug Administration warns that this non-medical use is both inappropriate and potentially harmful to fetal development. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

Alan Cheuse reviews Southwesterly Wind, by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, the third in a series of novels about a detective in Rio de Janeiro. This time, the detective is called upon to investigate a murder which has not yet taken place.

U.S. and allied forces clash with supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The worst violence was near the southern city of Najaf, where 20 Iraqis were killed when al-Sadr's supporters opened fire on a Spanish garrison near the city. There was a similar demonstration in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. The violence flared after U.S. forces detained an associate of Sadr. NPR's Philip Reeves reports.

Sullivan is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt. His new book is Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants. One reviewer writes, "in prose worthy of Joseph Mitchell, a... skittering, scurrying, terrific natural history." Sullivan is a contributing editor to Vogue and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.