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President Bush's solid performance in recent polls shows support for his handling of foreign policy, according to members of his campaign. Despite criticisms stemming from the Sept. 11 commission hearings and Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack, Bush's approval rating has remained steady, and he has gained ground on likely Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry. NPR's Don Gonyea reports.

Gun battles continue to mar the cease-fire between U.S. Marines and insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq. The sporadic violence has reportedly led some Marine commanders to becoming impatient with political efforts to defuse the situation. Hear NPR's Melissa Block and KPBS reporter Eric Niiler.

The CIA and other intelligence agencies were too slow to recognize and describe the threat posed by al Qaeda, and failed to warn other government agencies properly, according to findings by the Sept. 11 commission. But CIA Director George Tenet and FBI Director Robert Mueller warn some of the panel's proposed reforms might make things worse. Hear NPR's Larry Abramson.

He is the author of the memoir, Blue Blood that begins with his first days on the street as a cop in the New York Police Department and goes back three generations. His great-grandfather was an "officer of dubious integrity" during the Tammany-era NYPD. Conlon also wrote the "Cop Diary" columns in The New Yorker and is a graduate of Harvard. One reviewer writes, "No one has written a book that grabs readers by the scruff of the neck and tells them what the life of a cop is really like as well as Edward Conlon."

The Bush administration reiterates its intentions to follow the planned Iraq policy and public hearings on Sept. 11 focus on law enforcement and government structure. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times.

Speaking to the nation and the White House press corps at a rare prime time news conference, President Bush says "the consequences of failure in Iraq would be unthinkable." He pledges that a U.S.-led effort there will not fail, but he vows to stick to a June 30 deadline to transfer power to an Iraqi government.

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice tells the commission investigating the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the Bush administration had no specific warning of those attacks. But several commissioners probed for more detail on a confidential briefing memo from Aug. 6, 2001 -- and called for it to be made public. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

Russia says it will airlift hundreds of its citizens out of Iraq beginning Thursday. The move comes despite the release earlier this week of three Russian and five Ukrainian hostages. Recent kidnappings of foreign nationals have prompted several governments to urge their citizens to leave Iraq. Hear NPR's Nick Spicer.

Alan Cheuse reviews Southwesterly Wind, by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, the third in a series of novels about a detective in Rio de Janeiro. This time, the detective is called upon to investigate a murder which has not yet taken place.

NPR's Susan Stone sends tonight's radio postcard from Iceland, where she went on a hunt for the Aurora Borealis -- the northern lights that are created when a solar wind full of charged particles enters the earth's magnetic field.