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Commentator Andrei Codrescu brings us this glimpse of the kind of day that feeds a commentator's mind.

Government lawyers on the Enron Task Force are stepping up prosecution following the holidays. The so-called "superseding indictment" could bring additional charges against Enron's Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow. It could also name new defendants. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports.

Over the past decade the states have added safeguarding the environment to their to-do lists. Now, states struggle with the worst fiscal crisis in 50 years, and they're being forced to make tough choices and review priorities. Environmental protection moves pretty far down the list. NPR's Greg Allen reports.

Everyone who has ever pondered whether chicken wings serve a purpose beyond deep fat fryers and bleu cheese sauce will be bowled over by the apparent benefits of wing flapping in flightless birds. NPR's John Nielsen reports on a study in this week's Science magazine showing how true flight may have evolved from these beginnings.

NPR's Don Gonyea reports the Bush administration is going to court in support of three white university students who say their school uses racial quotas. The White House is accusing the University of Michigan of using quotas in deciding who is admitted. The university says its policy is constitutional, and that race is one of many factors it considers in its selection process. Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress say after the racial remarks made by Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), now is not the time for the administration to challenge the factor of race in admissions.

Guest host John Ydstie talks with Jeffrey Lehman, dean of the University of Michigan Law School, and Cornell's president-elect, about the affirmative action policies of the law school at Michigan.

A juvenile court judge in Fairfax County, Va., rules that Washington, D.C.-area sniper suspect Lee Malvo, 17, can be tried as an adult for the murder of an FBI analyst. He and another suspect are implicated in 12 other fatal shootings. The ruling makes Malvo eligible for the death penalty. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.

An Afghan physician based in Paris is taking new measures to get sick Afghan children the medical attention they need. She's flying many of them to Paris, where doctors perform a range of operations unimaginable in Kabul's basic medical facilities. Medical teams in Paris are struggling to raise money to improve medicine in Afghanistan, and hope the children will bring a message of modernity back to their villages. The BBC's Emma Jane Kirby reports.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports that naturalist John Muir is back. Or so it seems. A man who has played Muir on stage for decades has just become a California county supervisor representing the Yosemite Valley... where he plans to take up Muir's environmentalist causes against a slate of property rights advocates.

In the new film About Schmidt, Kathy Bates plays Roberta Hertzel -- an aging hippie and free spirit. Jack Nicholson plays the repressed insurance salesman Warren Schmidt. In one scene Bates strips nude in front of Nicholson. It's the scene everyone is talking about. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Kathy Bates about the scene and about her career in film.