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Across the nation, educators are balancing mandates to improve test scores and a chronic lack of resources with the need for children to have enough time to simply be children. In the first of a four-part series about homework on Morning Edition, NPR's Margot Adler examines how the increasing academic workload is stressing out kids and their families.

Commentator and music writer Toure recently spent time with rapper 50 Cent, and reflects on why the former drug dealer-turned-hip hop artist appeals to him. 50 Cent's latest album, Get Rich or Die Tryin, has sold more than 2 million copies in less than a month.

NASA engineers speak out about a much-discussed e-mail exchange that seemed to anticipate the space shuttle Columbia catastrophe. They tell reporters their comments were seen by the right people and were accorded the weight they deserved. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

Walon Green is one of the executive producers of Dragnet, the remake of the 1950s crime drama set in Los Angeles. The new show revives the fictional detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith. Green is a veteran producer and writer of other police dramas including Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, as well as the dramas ER and Law & Order. Green also wrote the screenplay for the classic Warner Bros. western The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah. He also wrote the screenplay for a more recent western, The Hi-Lo Country.

In 1997, All Things Considered senior host Robert Siegel first interviewed Jeremy Armstrong, sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing another man. He was just 15 when he committed the crime, but was sentenced as an adult under the state's new "get-tough" juvenile justice policies. Siegel catches up with Armstrong, now living in a medium-security lockup -- listen to past interviews with Armstrong as Siegel follows his progress.

At a Pentagon briefing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says the overnight missile strike near Baghdad hit a "senior Iraqi leadership compound." And he says there are reports the Iraqi regime may have set fire to three or four oil wells in southern Iraq. Hear NPR's Tom Gjelten.

The U.S. launches a pre-dawn missile attack on what President Bush calls "selected targets of military importance" in Iraq. In Baghdad, where streets are deserted, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf accuses President Bush of a crime against humanity in ordering the attack. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and NPR's Anne Garrels.

NPR's regular program schedule was pre-empted by NPR News Special Coverage of the war in Iraq. Audio for the day beginning at noon ET is available at the link below.

At an emergency parliament session, Iraqi lawmakers are urged to rally behind Saddam Hussein and defend the country. Meanwhile, residents flee Baghdad and nearly 300,000 U.S. and British soldiers deployed in the Persian Gulf area prepare to invade Iraq. Hear NPR's Anne Garrels and NPR's Mike Shuster.

Host Bob Edwards talks with actor John C. Reilly about the turn his career has taken over the past year. Reilly appeared in four films this year, three of which are nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. And he's up for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as well. It's a big change for a man that most movie watchers would recognize but wouldn't know his name.