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Britain has sent more than 25,000 troops to Kuwait, along with tanks, artillery and other equipment. Many are stationed about 20 miles south of the Iraqi border and are poised for a possible assault on the Iraqi town of Basra. The troops have been training intensively since their arrival three weeks ago. NPR's Mike Shuster describes how the troops practice an assault on enemy trenches, the kind of defensive positions they expect to find when they cross the border into Iraq.

It was a record year for snow in many parts of the West -- and as summer approaches, that snowpack is melting fast. That's good news for whitewater rafters, but it can be deadly for casual swimmers. In California's Sierra Nevada, home to some of the fastest uncontrolled rivers in the West, national park rangers are training for a big water year.

School begins today in Lafayette, La., for 30,000 students in the district and more than 4,000 evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. For the hundreds of thousands of students and their families displaced by the storm, getting back to their studies is a huge step towards putting their lives back together.

The trek of millions of Monarch butterflies from their breeding grounds in North America to central Mexico is one of nature's great mysteries, scientists say. But many in the area taken over from November to March see it as a mixed blessing.

What was once a sleepy little airbase in southern Spain is now the busiest base in the U.S. Air Force. The Moron base is the main transit point between the United States and Iraq and Afghanistan. Thousands of tons of war supplies, tanker planes and squadrons of fighters now pass through Moron. It's a vital link in the U.S. supply chain -- but it's not very popular with many Spaniards.

Many Turks are confused by the early release of the man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981. Mehmet Ali Agca was also convicted of the 1979 murder of a liberal newspaper editor in Turkey.

In a story that has enthralled many Italians, the pretender to the Italian throne, Victor Emmanuel, has been jailed over his alleged involvement in a sex scandal. The prince prefers to stay in jail rather than be granted house arrest in a nearby rented villa -- because, he says, there is no air conditioning. The lead investigator in the case, Henry John Woodcock, has become a minor celebrity. He is a Neapolitan with an English father. Transcribed wiretaps that have been published by the media reveal an underworld of right-wing politicians promising showgirls jobs in TV in exchange for sex -- which is said to take place inside the foreign ministry.

Peggy Lee's most memorable tune was "Fever." A biography borrows the title of the 1958 hit, which encapsulated what many remember about the singer: her playful delivery, charisma and sexuality.

The image of a potential moviegoer downloading full-length movies from the Internet and burning them to a DVD is one that gives many Hollywood studio chiefs fits. But for executives in the adult-movie industry, the process is the key to a new business model.

It was in Philly where Jimmy Smith first took a church instrument and made it swing. Years later, the city's jazz community gathers to salute its many soulful pioneers of the Hammond B-3 organ.