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Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis (Pantheon).

Film critic David Edelstein reviews The Magdalene Sisters by Scottish writer/director Peter Mullan. It's based on Ireland's actual Magdalene Asylums where Catholic girls accused of "moral crimes" (anything from getting pregnant, to being too attractive, to accusing a man of rape) were sent to work in laundries to atone for their sins. These virtual prisons finally closed their doors in 1996.

Three-and-a-half months after the fall of Baghdad, resentment to the presence of U.S. soldiers seems to be growing. When Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed and looting erupted across Baghdad, doctors at the city's Al Kindi hospital begged American troops to protect them. But now, relations between U.S. soldiers and the medical staff are strained. NPR's Anne Garrels reports.

A tiny insect called the froghopper, or spittle bug, leapt over the flea as nature's most powerful jumper. A new study says that the spittle bug can leap more than two feet in the air. That's more than twice as high as the flea, and the equivalent of a man jumping over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports.

Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay are buried near Tikrit, the former Iraqi dictator's home town. U.S. forces continue to be targets for resistance, with one soldier killed and three wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack Friday night. And an Iraqi woman -- apparently a bystander -- dies when U.S. forces fire back after a bomb is thrown at an American military convoy. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels.

As Social Security fraud escalates, the federal government faces new and conflicting pressures over how the system operates. All Things Considered host Robert Siegel reports on the problems the administration faces, and what the solutions may be. Find online how to guard against identity theft.

By the end of August, Mars will come as close to Earth as it has for 60,000 years, though it's still 35-million miles away. Mars will be brighter in the sky, giving amateur astronomers and NASA alike a rare opportunity to study a cosmic neighbor. Hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer and Sky and Telescope magazine editor Kelly Beatty.

Most recently Hope Davis played the daughter of Jack Nicholson in the movie About Schmidt. Her other roles include Mumford, Next Stop Wonderland, Flatliners and Daytrippers. Davis is starring in the new film American Splendor, which took the 2003 Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Prize. She is also starring in The Secret Lives of Dentists.

Poet W.S. Merwin talks about his memoir, The Mays of Ventadorn, that covers his time in the French countryside. Merwin lived in southern France during the 1950s, and became enchanted by the language of the Troubadours, poet-musicians from 800 years before.

The bluegrass legends played in NPR's studios, and spoke to host Melissa Block.