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When the Pentagon released a list of 33 major military installations it wants shut down, it sent shock waves through many cities and states. The proposed closing of Ellsworth Air Force Base, home to a fleet of bombers, is going over badly in Rapid City. Charles Michael Ray of South Dakota Public Radio reports.

The Space Shuttle Discovery has docked with the International Space Station. In doing so, it did a controlled back flip to enable cameras on the ISS to photograph its belly for damage. So far, there is no indication that the shuttle was damaged on liftoff.

Carolyn and Mary Jane DeZurik grew up on a Minnesota farm, but they rose to musical fame in the 1930s. Their special talents included yodeling and imitations of birds and barnyard animals. Their story is told again by writer John Biguenet in the music issue of Oxford American magazine.

The American Music Center has commissioned six composers to write original compositions for its phone system. The idea is to make sitting on hold a more stimulating experience, and create new venues for electroacoustic composers. Robert Siegel talks with Joanne Cossa, the executive director of the American Music Center.

In 2002, with rural unrest spreading, Chinese authorities permitted more local elections. Wan Shuguang, a peasant in central China, was elected village chief. He tried to make government more transparent, especially in financial matters. As his three-year term ends, his optimism has ebbed.

Michele Norris talks with Blair Kamin, architecture critic for The Chicago Tribune, about the proposal to build what would be the tallest building in the United States. A Chicago developer says as a residential tower it would not be a target, but there is a real tension there about whether it can be a real symbol on Lakeshore Drive. And then there's the traffic.

Doctors across the country have been debating the question of prospective mothers' ages, as reproductive technologies make it possible for women in their 60s to have children. Michele Norris talks with Dr. Elizabeth Ginsburg of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston about her hospital's current debate over age limits for motherhood. We hear from Dr. Robert Stillman of the Shady Grove Fertility Center in Rockville, Md., who believes limits must exist. Finally, we talk with Margaret Janicki LaBarbera, who had her first child at 54.

War correspondent Patrick Cockburn took a break recently from covering global conflicts to write about a life-and-death struggle of his youth. Cockburn is a polio survivor. The Broken Boy is his story.

The landmark New Orleans eatery turns 100 this year. Locals and celebrities, U.S. presidents among them, have queued up for a table over the years at a bistro celebrated in a biography by two regulars.

NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr says that the real issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war, and how America was misled into that war.