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Russia says it will airlift hundreds of its citizens out of Iraq beginning Thursday. The move comes despite the release earlier this week of three Russian and five Ukrainian hostages. Recent kidnappings of foreign nationals have prompted several governments to urge their citizens to leave Iraq. Hear NPR's Nick Spicer.

Alan Cheuse reviews Southwesterly Wind, by Luiz Alfredo Garcia-Roza, the third in a series of novels about a detective in Rio de Janeiro. This time, the detective is called upon to investigate a murder which has not yet taken place.

Barry's new book is The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History. In 1918, the influenza virus emerged, and in the next year killed millions of people. He writes "before that worldwide pandemic faded away in 1920, it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history." Scientists are still trying to figure out why the virus spread so rapidly and killed so efficiently. The story has relevance today as scientists believe we are due for another flu pandemic. Barry is the author of four other books including Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America.

Search technology, once relegated to library science departments and remote corners of computer science labs, went mainstream with the Internet, spawning such once-giant brands as Lycos, AltaVista and Yahoo. These engines proved that the Web could be indexed, but they failed when it came to giving users what they wanted.

Sullivan is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Meadowlands and A Whale Hunt. His new book is Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants. One reviewer writes, "in prose worthy of Joseph Mitchell, a... skittering, scurrying, terrific natural history." Sullivan is a contributing editor to Vogue and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker.

Scattered clashes are reported in the region around Fallujah, though a cease-fire declared over the weekend is largely holding. Iraqi officials report 600 civilians have died in Fallujah since U.S. Marines launched an offensive there last Monday. Those fleeing the city accuse U.S. forces of firing randomly, causing numerous civilian casualties. Hear NPR's Philip Reeves.

A day after the White House released a briefing document on the al Qaeda threat that President George Bush received a month before the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush says the brief lacked "actionable intelligence." Security experts say the paper leads them to question the Bush administration's judgment of the information. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.

U.S. and allied forces clash with supporters of the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The worst violence was near the southern city of Najaf, where 20 Iraqis were killed when al-Sadr's supporters opened fire on a Spanish garrison near the city. There was a similar demonstration in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad. The violence flared after U.S. forces detained an associate of Sadr. NPR's Philip Reeves reports.

He made the pop charts over and over again during the 1970s and early '80s with his love ballads like Mandy, Looks Like We Made It, I Write the Songs and Copacabana (At the Copa). Before becoming a singer, he was Bette Midler's accompanist and arranger. He has a new CD Barry Manilow: 2 Nights Live and a DVD Ultimate Manilow (Rebroadcast from March 21, 2002).

Marine commanders say time is running out for insurgents in Fallujah to comply with the terms of a cease-fire agreement signed earlier this week. Military officials say insurgents have not turned in significant numbers of heavy weapons, in violation of the accord. Marine commanders say their offensive will resume unless real progress is made. KPBS reporter Eric Niiler reports.