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The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists. Its power has grown since the passage of the Patriot Act. Critics worry about the secrecy that surrounds the proceedings, but FBI agents say undue concern about civil liberties hinders surveillance.

We've all had these moments in movie theaters or in meetings when we hear the annoying ring of a phone and suddenly realize, to our horror, that it's our own phone. Engineers are trying to solve this problem. They're developing polite cell phones that can tell when to keep quiet, and when it's OK to interrupt.

In a land where the ground is always frozen, one creature has nourished man both physically and spiritually. Anthropologist Piers Vitebsky discusses The Reindeer People, his book about the Eveny herders of Siberia.

The Soviet Union's dominance of world figure skating collapsed along with communism. But since the last Winter Olympics, the Russian government has increased funding for the sport by a factor of 10.

The beginning of January marks the deadline for most college admissions applications. The Unversity of Virginia's freshmen may not be anxious to revisit this period, but they can anyway: A play called Voices of the Class, 2009 offers adaptations of their application essays.

Foreign aid can be a mixed blessing. For a while, in one small Nigerian town, the money flowed. Five years later assistance came to an end, and that left thousands of orphans to fend for themselves. NPR’s Brenda Wilson reports.

The massive, fatal waves that resulted from Sunday's powerful earthquake in Southeast India are among the most destructive tsunamis of the past 50 years. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii.

Among the U.S. troops serving in Iraq, a small group of soldier-poets convene to share their verses. At Camp Victory, a U.S. military base at Baghdad's international airport, the "poetry jams" occur every two weeks.

President Bush nominates Undersecretary of State John Bolton to be the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton has been critical of the United Nations, but he insists his past remarks will not hinder his effectiveness as a diplomat.

In the West, new ways are emerging to make ranching compatible with preservation. For financial incentives, ranchers keep their lands away from developers and try to preserve fragile desert landscapes.