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NPR's Jon Hamilton has the second of a two-part report on the discovery of a chemical called perchlorate, a rocket fuel additive, in the drinking water of Rialto, Calif. Although there's no evidence that perchlorate causes health problems, its presence has brought hardship for a town that relies heavily on its underground water supply.

Dutch architect and Pritzker Prize laureate Rem Koolhaas's first U.S. project opens to the public Saturday in Chicago. The student center at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus has bright orange glass and a stainless steel tube on top that the Chicago elevated train passes through. Edward Lifson of Chicago Public Radio reports.

More than 400 objects from ancient Mesopotamia are on display in a new exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. The rare pieces, gathered from museums around the world, are similar to artifacts feared lost in the looting of Iraq's museums. NPR's David D'Arcy reports.

Marooned in Iraq is the latest film from Iranian-based Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi, who won acclaim for his first effort, A Time for Drunken Horses. The story touches on Saddam Hussein's brutal crackdown on the Kurds in the 1980s, but it's really a "road movie musical" with an often comic sensibility. Pat Dowell reports.

Cirque Du Soleil, the renowned performance troupe, is capitalizing on the success of its ongoing Las Vegas show "O" with a new production for adults only. "Zumanity," which opens Saturday, may be the riskiest show the Montreal-based company has ever produced. Jeff Lunden reports.

The latest show from artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney is a massive exhibit that fills Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum. A New York Times critic has dubbed Barney the greatest artist of his generation. But the new issue of Artforum says the Cremaster Cycle show may prove to be Barney's Waterloo. Jad Abumrad of member station WNYC reports.

Actor Buddy Ebsen, best known for his role as Jed Clampett on the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies, dies at age 95. Ebsen, who started his career as a dancer on Broadway shows and MGM musicals in the 1930s, also starred as a private investigator in the 1970s TV show Barnaby Jones. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports.

In Washington, several aspiring conductors get a chance to learn from a maestro. Leonard Slatkin, music director of the National Symphony Orchestra, offers his young charges advice ranging from clothing tips to the physicality of the job. NPR's Steve Inskeep reports.

Forty years after the New York Philharmonic spurned Carnegie Hall for its rival, the Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the orchestra announces it will return to Carnegie. But the merger of the two prestigious institutions faces potential legal entanglements with Lincoln Center. Jeff Lunden reports.

The Passion, a film project co-written and directed by actor Mel Gibson, comes under fire from Roman Catholic and Jewish religious leaders. The unfinished film is about the death of Jesus, and critics say the movie fuels anti-Semitism. David D'Arcy reports.