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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrives in China, the final stop of her first Asian tour as America's top diplomat. Rice visited Japan and South Korea in the last two days; the focus of many of her discussions has been North Korea and its nuclear research.

Amid reports of large-scale kidnappings, Iraqi security forces raid houses believed to house Sunni militants holding Shiite hostages. The sectarian violence prompted Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to appeal for calm in the region.

Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and other stars testify on Capitol Hill about performance-enhancing drugs in professional baseball. Former star Jose Canseco said illegal steroids have been widely used in the sport. Players also asked lawmakers to focus on the future and not the past.

Documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union cast more negative light on U.S. treatment of detainees around the world. Among the documents were the results of an Army investigation into photographs of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, who allegedly posed alongside detainees during mock executions. The photographs were destroyed following the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Tony Blair will begin a historic third term as Britain's prime minister, but his Labour Party lost seats in Parliament in Thursday's national elections, in part because of the British public's misgivings over the Iraq war.

President Bush's call for democracy in the Middle East has taken on new significance since the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister stirred protests for Syria to pull out its troops from Lebanon. The president also points to first-time democratic elections in Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Mohammed Kamal, a political science professor at Cairo University, discusses democratic movements in the region and specifically Egypt.

An overwhelmingly supportive crowd, scattered with anti-Bush demonstrators, braved bitterly cold temperatures to witness President Bush take his second oath of office. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, battling cancer and looking visibly frail, administered the oath on the Capitol steps. Hear NPR's Alex Chadwick and NPR's Mike Pesca.

Researchers find that freezing gas to combat global warming may significantly harm marine life. Scientists have suggested capturing carbon dioxide gas from factory smokestacks and pumping it two miles under the ocean's surface. Freezing temperatures at that depth turn the CO2 into a slushy solid, which sinks to the ocean floor.

The nation's largest counterterrorism exercise begins Monday, and it will consist of a mock chemical attack in Connecticut and a biological attack in New Jersey. The five-day drill will test the readiness of federal, state, local and international officials. It's the third such drill, and those who participated in the last one two years ago say it provided some useful lessons.

President Bush marks Earth Day with a visit to the Great Smoky Mountains -- America's most-visited national park and one of its most polluted. The president will use the park as a backdrop for promoting policies he says will result in cleaner air and water. Environmentalists say he is actually weakening regulations.