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China's highest court threatens harsh new penalties -- including life in prison -- for anyone caught violating quarantine orders or otherwise intentionally spreading SARS. The move comes as China steps up efforts to battle SARS in rural areas, where poor conditions at health care facilities may make it easier for the virus to spread. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Prime Minister Tony Blair wins a plea to Britain's Parliament to support a British attack on Iraq without U.N. authorization. Blair didn't need Parliament's consent to send troops into battle, but it's the biggest political gamble of his career. Opposition is strong in his own party and across Britain. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports.

NASA releases e-mails demonstrating that a day before space shuttle Columbia's demise, engineers privately worried about the impact of tile damage sustained at launch. The e-mails explored prophetic "what-if" scenarios that concluded the orbiter could lose its left wing and break up high in the atmosphere. Hear NPR's Richard Harris.

Unidentified Iraqis ambush British troops in southern Iraq, wounding eight British soldiers. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of six British soldiers in a separate incident are not fully known, but officials believe they were killed by hostile fire. Meanwhile, Pentagon officials say the level of coordination involved in the ongoing attacks on U.S. and British troops in Iraq is "unclear." NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

Actor, director, writer and producer Hume Cronyn died Sunday at his home in Fairfield, Conn., from prostate cancer. He was 91. A veteran of both stage and screen, Cronyn was perhaps best known for his collaborations with his wife, the late Jessica Tandy. The couple received a special lifetime achievement Tony in 1994. NPR's Ari Shapiro offers a remembrance.

The Supreme Court rules that minority college applicants may be given an edge when applying for admissions, but limits how great a factor race can play. Issuing two split decisions regarding the University of Michigan's admissions policies, justices strike down a point system used for undergraduate admissions, but uphold a law school program that gives race less prominence. Hear NPR's Nina Totenberg.

American forces in Iraq capture Abid Hamid Mahmud, Saddam Hussein's security chief and No. 4 on the U.S. list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leaders. And U.S. troops raid farmhouses near the northern city of Tikrit in an effort to root out supporters of the former Baathist regime. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.

The Department of Homeland Security will award aerospace giant Boeing a contract to provide high-tech methods to catch illegal immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Boeing's "virtual fence" concept includes an estimated 1,800 towers along the border equipped with cameras and motion sensors.

Marine and Army investigators are struggling to get permission to exhume the bodies of Iraqis to strengthen criminal cases against American soldiers and Marines. But their efforts are at odds with the religious and cultural sensitivities of Muslims, who generally bar disturbing a body once it is buried.

The House votes to block credit card companies from sending funds to offshore gambling houses, part of a move to tighten restrictions on Internet gambling. The bill that passed also would allow Internet service providers to block certain gambling Web sites in the United States.