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A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine this week indicates that current levels of air pollution have chronic adverse effects on lung development in children aged 10 to 18. The large study's authors conclude that the exposure leads to clinically significant deficits in adult lung function. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee for CIA director, faces tough questioning from Senate Democrats at his confirmation hearings. Responding to multiple accusations that he used intelligence politically, Goss pledged to provide non-partisan intelligence. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.

Insurgents in Tikrit kill 17 Iraqis who worked for the U.S. Army. In all, more than 40 Iraqis have been killed in the past two days. The U.S. embassy says attacks on the road to Baghdad's airport remain commonplace. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.

Official Washington had barely caught its breath yesterday over the resignation of Attorney General John Ashcroft, when President Bush announced his new choice for the top law enforcement job: White House counsel and longtime Bush confidant Alberto Gonzales. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

Amid the buy, buy, buy of this holiday season, another concept has taken hold: give, give, give. Increasingly, popular catalogs and some retail stores allow people to donate practical gifts such as a dairy goat or a water buffalo to countries in need, in honor of friends and family. NPR's Margot Adler reports.

Relief workers and dazed survivors in Sri Lanka continue to uncover bodies of those who died in last week's tsunami -- and estimates of the number of dead continue to rise in Indonesia, Thailand and other nations on the Indian Ocean. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from the Sri Lankan village of Hambantota.

A privately financed craft succeeds in taking a pilot into space for the second time in less than two weeks. In doing so, SpaceShipOne wins the so-called X-Prize of $10 million for the team funded by Paul Allen, a founder of Microsoft. NPR's David Kestenbaum reports.

Two Italian aid workers are released by their captors after being kidnapped and held hostage for three weeks. The women, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, both 29, were handed over to the Red Cross along with two Iraqi workers who were held with them. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports.

Families choosing open adoption don't just gain a son or daughter -- they gain an extended family that includes a birth mother and sometimes aunts and grandparents. For one adoptive family in Overland Park, Kan., building and keeping those ties is not as complicated as it sounds. NPR's Greg Allen reports.

Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announces that its popular painkiller Celebrex may increase the risk of cardiovascular problems. New study results indicate more than double the risk of major heart problems, but another study failed to corroborate the finding. NPR's Richard Knox reports.