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Gunmen armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attack a U.S. resupply convoy in Iraq, killing one American soldier and wounding others. In another incident, a land mine set on a Baghdad roadway explodes, destroying a U.S. Humvee and injuring the soldiers inside. Hear NPR News.

In the first of a four-part series on the Wal-Mart chain, NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports that the retail giant has its roots in small town capitalism. The company has now developed one of the most sophisticated information management and product distribution systems in the world.

The U.S. occupation has liberated the baser instincts of some Iraqis. Public drunkenness, taboo under Saddam, is now a growing problem. And blue movies are drawing big crowds of young men. NPR's Nick Spicer reports from Baghdad.

Film critic David Edelstein reviews Capturing the Friedmans, a new documentary by Andrew Jarecki about a family torn apart by charges of pedophilia and child molestation.

New York Times Executive Editor Howell Raines and Managing Editor Gerald Boyd step down in the wake of a scandal involving former reporter Jayson Blair. Raines and Boyd faced intense criticism after Blair was accused of various ethical transgressions during his four years at The Times. Hear Jack Schaffer of Slate magazine.

A U.S. delegation returns from North Korea, carrying a message from its leaders. The communist country says it has nuclear weapons and plans to build more. But officials doubt whether North Korea has the technology to back up those claims. One American scientist recounts his rare 1994 visit to the country's nuclear facilities, and the questions he was left with. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

Allied officials say they will soon pick a council of leading Iraqis to work under U.S. and British occupation forces. It's billed as a small first step in turning power over to Iraqis, but it does not constitute the start of a new government -- that will have to wait for a constitutional convention and elections. NPR's Steve Inskeep talks with NPR's Deborah Amos in Iraq.

A cache of Baath Party records discovered in a party office in Baghdad shows how Saddam Hussein used his political base to maintain an iron grip on power. Some of the memos also provide a glimpse into how Iraqi society was suppressed for so long. NPR's Scott Simon reports.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Jon Lee Anderson about his Letter from Baghdad in the May 5th issue of the New Yorker. In his article entitled "Saddam's Ear," Anderson describes two men living a paradox in post-Saddam Iraq. Both were in the inner circle of the Hussein regime and lived in fear and admiration of Saddam. One of the men is Dr. Ala Bashir, plastic surgeon and artist, who knew Saddam as someone who was calm and a good listener, and who would have become a great actor if he'd ever gone to Hollywood. Yet, Bashir says he knows Saddam was a dictator and murderer.

U.S. forces arrest self-proclaimed Baghdad mayor Mohammed Mohsen Zubaidi, an Iraqi exile, for his "inability to support the coalition military authority and for exercising authority which was not his," U.S. Central Command says. But some Iraqis see Zubaidi's arrest as an attempt by the United States to impose its will on the country. Hear NPR's Jackie Northam.