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Two new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine suggest people who follow the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet advocated by Dr. Robert Atkins can indeed lose more weight than those on conventional low-fat diets. But some researchers say the results do not account for the long-term health effects of a high-fat diet. NPR's Richard Knox reports.

More than 3,000 bodies have been removed so far from a mass grave found in central Iraq. The bodies are believed to be those of people killed by Saddam Hussein's government during a Shiite uprising following the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Hear NPR's Christopher Joyce.

Indie-pop darling Joe Pernice takes a break from the gloom on his new Pernice Brothers' album, Yours, Mine and Ours — sort of. Pernice speaks with NPR's Liane Hansen.

The United States is expected to push for a U.N. Security Council vote this week on a resolution for rebuilding Iraq. The measure is expected to pass, although Russia, France and China have expressed reservations. At issue are control of the country's oil industry and the role the United States and Britain will play in governing postwar Iraq. Hear United Nations Under-Secretary General Shashi Tharoor.

The SARS outbreak in Beijing is slowing down, Chinese officials say, dropping from a peak of more than 100 new cases a day to fewer than 50. But officials with the World Health Organization say the outbreak is not under control and say they worry the disease could spread significantly outside the capital city. Hear NPR's Richard Harris.

NPR's Chris Joyce reports on a fire burning out of control at one of the main telecommunications centers in Baghdad. U.S. troops have sealed off the area around the blaze but no firefighters have arrived. Few Iraqis are taking notice of the latest blaze in a city badly hit by arson and looting.

In Baghdad, one of Saddam Hussein's most notorious prisons is now abandoned. Looters took everything of value from the building. But people who were tortured there remember all too well. NPR's Scott Simon reports.

Barbara Bodine, the U.S. official assigned to govern central Iraq, will leave her post and return to the United States to take a position at the State Department. The move comes just days after the top civilian administrator in Iraq, retired Gen. Jay Garner, is replaced by L. Paul Bremer, a longtime State Department official. Bodine and Garner have been criticized for being slow to restore services and form an interim government. Hear NPR's Guy Raz.

Host Robert Siegel talks with NPR's Guy Raz about Thursday's re-opening of Iraq's criminal courts. An American adviser says Saddam Hussein and top associates in the Baath Party could be put on trial in Iraq. There have been protests in Baghdad -- most recently Wednesday by a group of Iraqi doctors -- against the rehiring of Baath Party members for government posts.

The Defense Department investigates the contents of a trailer it says may have been used as a mobile biological weapons lab. A U.S. official says the trailer, recovered April 19 near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, has all the equipment of a lab, but that preliminary tests have not turned up any evidence of banned biological agents. Hear NPR's Eric Westervelt.

The kitschy, Americanized "tiki" adaptation of island life includes everything from Hawaiian shirts to Hula girls... and don't forget tropical drinks garnished with paper umbrellas. Hundreds of people are gathering under bamboo torches in Palm Springs, Calif., for a third-annual celebration of tiki culture known as the Tiki Oasis. Alex Cohen of member station KQED reports.

Kurdish commanders say their fighters will withdraw from Kirkuk after working with U.S. forces to gain control of the oil center in northern Iraq. Turkey is uncomfortable with a continued Kurdish presence in Kirkuk. NPR's Ivan Watson reports.