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Actor Dominic Chianese. He plays Uncle Junior on the hit HBO series The Sopranos. He's had roles in TV shows such as Kojak, Law and Order, and films including Dog Day Afternoon, and The Godfather Part II. At the age of 70, he launched a singing career. His recent album is called Hits. He brings his guitar to the studio. This interview first aired August 22, 2001.

Writer Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for public radio's This American Life. She's also the author of the book Take the Cannoli, and the new book of her pieces, The Partly Cloudy Patriot (Simon & Schuster).

He's covered politics, economics and international affairs for The New York Times for over 30 years. He now writes editorials for the paper. In his new book, The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson The Fierce Battles over Money and Power That Transformed the Nation (Simon & Schuster) he looks at the battles over "wealth, power and fairness" that led to the establishment of the income tax.

John Wesley Powell is best known as an explorer of the Colorado River and surrounding regions. But his greatest legacy may be the early warnings he sounded about settlement and water use in the West. A century after his death, Powell's ideas are earning new credibility.

A new book sheds light on one of the discoverers of the structure of DNA in the early '50s. Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA highlights the contributions of a chemist whose work went largely unheralded for decades. Howard Berkes talks with author Brenda Maddox. NPR Online has the interview in its entirety.

We remember historian Stephen Ambrose who died Sunday at the age of 66. A college professor, Ambrose became a best-selling author late in life with his book D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. He wrote several military history volumes including Citizen Soldiers. He was consultant for the film Saving Private Ryan and his book Band of Brothers was the basis of the 2001 HBO mini-series. Ambrose also wrote Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark exploration to the West. This interview first aired Aug. 15, 2001.

Singer Linda Thompson is back performing after a long hiatus. She was formerly part of a British folk-rock duo with her husband, Richard Thompson. In 1985, Linda Thompson left the stage, diagnosed with hysterical dysphonia, a form of stage fright. Her new CD is called Fashionably Late and she collaborated with Richard and their son Teddy on the album's songs.

NPR's Joe Palca reports on the winners of this year's Nobel Prize for Chemistry. John Fenn of the United States, Koichi Tanaka of Japan and Kurt Wuethrich of Switzerland won the prize for developing tools to analyze and study important biological molecules called proteins.

Actor Christopher Reeve. A 1995 horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. Recently, with intensive physical therapy, Reeve announced that he has regained motion and feeling in his fingers and in other parts of his body. This is incredible news to scientists, who assumed he would never move again. Reeve was totally paralyzed for five years. Then, one morning two years ago, he found he could move one finger. Reeve is still dependent on a wheelchair and respirator. He's just written a book, Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life. His other book is Still Me. Reeve is most famous for starring in the Superman film series (I, II, III and IV).

Actor Joe Pantoliano plays Ralph Cifaretto on the HBO series The Sopranos. He has appeared in more than 60 films, including Memento, The Matrix and The Fugitive. He has a new memoir called Who's Sorry Now: The True Story of a Stand-Up Guy (E. P. Dutton). Pantoliano talks about growing up in Hoboken, N.J., and his acting career.