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President Bush's budget proposal calls for significant changes to Medicare and Medicaid.

Initial clues in the investigation of the break-up of the space shuttle Columbia suggest there may have been a problem with the tiles that protect the spacecraft against the heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere. Meanwhile, searchers are scouring a wide area of East Texas and Louisiana for shuttle wreckage. NPR's Richard Harris and Wade Goodwyn report.

An independent board appointed by NASA begins its investigation of the shuttle disaster. The disaster probe in part will be modeled after the National Transportation Safety Board investigations of airplane crashes. NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.

NPR's Richard Harris reports that the NASA investigation into Saturday's disintegration of the space shuttle Columbia is concentrating more closely on the landing gear compartment in the aircraft's left wing. There's increasing evidence that the problem started there. Before the spacecraft came apart, the left side of the shuttle, adjoining the wing, heated up by an alarming 60 degrees over a few minutes. The wheel well where the landing gear is stored during flight is especially vulnerable to heat.

Liane Hansen reads from a young listener's letter. Jessi Hall, 16, from Jamestown, Ohio, wrote a poem about the space shuttle Columbia.

He is a pioneer in the field of medical-imaging technology. In a new book, From Conception to Birth: a Life Unfolds, he collects images of the fetus in every stage of its development. The three-dimensional color visualizations are culled from a variety of medical-image techniques and then reconfigured on the computer. Tsiaras is also a photojournalist and an artist. His previous book is The Death Rituals of Rural Greece. He is also president and CEO of Anatomical Travelogue, Inc.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports on the reactivation of the Space Shuttle Children's Trust Fund, which will solicit donations from the public to provide for the 12 children whose parents died in the shuttle Columbia shuttle disaster. The fund was started 17 years ago after the shuttle Challenger explosion. While the federal government provides death benefits to the children of astronauts, the money is only a fraction of what their parents would have earned had they survived. (The Space Shuttle Children's Trust Fund, P.O. Box 34600, Washington, D.C. 20043-4600)

Investigators continue to gather clues that might help explain what went wrong when the space shuttle Columbia broke up Saturday morning, killing all seven crewmembers. Today's memorial service with President Bush will offer NASA officials rare pause in an otherwise tedious examination of flight videos, computer data, and debris. NPR's Richard Harris reports that while NASA is making strides in piecing the accident together, officials say they're far from any conclusions about what caused the disaster.

The growing U.S. military force assembling in Kuwait is busy honing its war-fighting skills. Elements of the army's 3rd Infantry Division are also practicing what some military planners say they most fear if war comes: urban, house-to-house fighting in Iraq's cities. NPR's Eric Westervelt followed along as soliders attacked a mock city in the desert. See some of his photos of the action.

David Bosselait's usual order is a coffee for himself, and a doughnut hole for his horse named Jackson. During the weekly trip, Jackson gets a lot of attention.