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NPR's Ivan Watson sees Baghdad through the eyes of a taxi driver. Ala Lefta is the driver and co-owner of one of the thousands of Korean-made mini-bus taxis that ferry passengers across the Iraqi capital. A year after the U.S. invasion, Ala wants soldiers deployed in the streets to break up the endless traffic jams and remove the danger of carjackers.

Five incumbent Democrats are retiring from the Senate this year, all from the South. With the region considered prime Bush territory, Republicans see a historic opportunity to make major gains and solidify their control of the Senate. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.

Martin Indyk, an assistant secretary of state during the Clinton administration, says Libya's decision to give up its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction was not prompted by the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, as claimed by the Bush administration. Libya, he says, offered to give up the weapons five years ago. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Indyk.

Shiite militias in the southern Iraqi port city of Basra have been patrolling the streets and cracking down on the sale of music, pornography and alcohol. Many residents now fear criticizing the city's Islamic parties, and British forces occupying the area worry the militias are undermining their activities. NPR's Ivan Watson reports.

The Food and Drug Administration says patients on some popular antidepressants should be closely monitored for warning signs of suicide. The agency asked the makers of 10 drugs to add the caution to their product labels. In changing its requirement, the FDA stressed that it is not yet clear that the drugs actually lead to suicide. NPR's Richard Knox reports.

In the second part of Morning Edition's series on Latin American cities, NPR's Gerry Hadden reports on the dark political climate of Guatemala City. The capital city, like Guatemala itself, has been scarred by decades of bloodshed, coups, and authoritarian governments.

In testimony before the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, top officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations defend their policies on the terrorist threat. The commission finds efforts against al Qaeda were hampered by a lack of intelligence, failed diplomatic overtures toward the Taliban and competing demands. Hear NPR's Pam Fessler.

NPR's Claudio Sanchez examines the little-known school desegregation case of Mendez v. Westminster. This California case won access for Mexican Americans to white schools in 1947 and helped set the stage seven years later for Brown v. Board of Education.

Critic Tom Manoff has discovered 17th-century Italy and the music of Anno 1630. In the project, three musicians take the music of little-known composers from the early Renaissance period and perform it, using an ancient newly refurbished organ, harp and violin. The CD Anno 1630 is on the Winter and Winter label.

Richard Clarke, who served as the top White House counter-terrorism official under three presidents, says George W. Bush's administration did not consider terrorist threats to be urgent in its first seven months, despite Clarke's urgings. Speaking on Capitol Hill to a national commission investigating U.S. policies before Sept. 11, 2001, Clark said terrorism was given extraordinarily high priority in the Clinton administration. Also Wednesday, CIA Director George Tenet told the panel that terrorist intelligence was not properly integrated among different agencies. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.