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Sad accounts of babies being dumped to die prompted many areas of the country to designate places where parents could safely abandon their newborns and escape prosecution. However, hardly any infants have been turned in this way. NPR's Jerome Vaughn reports from Detroit that supporters of the idea say they just need to back their good intentions with publicity.

Doctors and abortion clinics are receiving their first shipments of the abortion pill that was authorized for use in the U.S. in September. In France, where RU486 was invented, it was put on the market -- with difficulty -- in 1988. Now, it accounts for one-third of all abortions there. NPR's Sarah Chayes reports from Paris that French abortions are actually decreasing; still, pharmaceutical companies want little to do with the pill.

President Bush says he will continue to press for changes to Social Security, despite signs that many Americans are opposed to it. At a White House news conference, Bush says he is committed to private accounts but admits they will not fix the financial problems that loom ahead for Social Security.

According to the Pentagon, improvised explosive devices account for half of all combat deaths in Iraq. The Pentagon says by summer, all U.S. military vehicles in Iraq will have factory-produced armor. The military also is turning to high-tech solutions, including drones that can detect items buried in the ground.

According to a Government Accountability Office report, hundreds of injured Army reservists and National Guard members -- including many wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan -- have lost medical care and pay because they were dropped from active duty status.

The intricacies of accounting fraud can be confusing, if not dull. But not always. New York Times writer Kurt Eichenwald's new book on corporate deceit and betrayal in the Enron scandal, Conspiracy of Fools, is full of riveting detail. He tells Jennifer Ludden about the reporting process.

The first public audit of the Coalition Provisional Authority's management of $18 billion of Iraqi funds is due this week. An interim report says CPA accounting practices were prone to error and open to fraud. NPR's Emily Harris reports.

The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer discusses The Dark Side, her nonfiction account of the Bush administration's anti-terror policies. Mayer has been nominated for a 2008 National Book Award for the work.

"Shoot Me While I'm Happy" is an account of falling in love with tap dancing written by Jane Goldberg, who studied and performed alongside some of the greatest tap dancers of the past 50 years.

The Mississippi is a major economic avenue, accounting for billions of dollars of trade, and the future may spell more trouble.