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President Biden is on his first trip to Asia since taking office. In South Korea and Japan, he'll try to coordinate more closely with them on priorities including strategic competition with China.

President Bush has chosen Wall Street veteran Henry M. Paulson Jr. to be his third treasury secretary. If confirmed, he would succeed John Snow. The Wall Street Journal's David Wessel tells Steve Inskeep that the Goldman Sachs CEO can make a difference at Treasury by taming the federal budget process and the tending to the value of the dollar.

Divisions among Democrats take center stage as the Senate debates two Iraq amendments to the defense bill. One, from Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), calls for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq by a certain date. A competing amendment, also from the Democrats, is an open-ended call for the withdrawal of troops. Republicans stand largely united against the amendments.

Humanitarian groups are finding cheaper ways -- namely, filtering systems -- to clean up contaminated drinking water in developing nations. That could greatly reduce diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites among the billion people worldwide who drink unsafe water.

The House votes in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Thursday's early morning vote is a victory for the Bush administration. House Republicans had trouble keeping rank-and-file members from defecting as many Democrats opposed the accord.

About 1,000 people have been evacuated from a town in Southern California after a landslide Wednesday. Multimillion-dollar houses in Laguna Beach were destroyed as residents escaped. Meanwhile, construction continues on new and glamorous homes in the area. Member station KPCC's Rob Schmitz reports.

A rare mushroom that grows in the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest may offer protection from smallpox -- an infectious disease that security experts feel may be a biological weapon of choice for terrorists who wish to attack America.

Business and labor groups are weighing in on proposed immigration legislation. The Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO are both against certain provisions in the bill. But agri-business interests are backing the proposals.

One brigade slated for deployment to Iraq this summer will instead be staying in Germany, courtesy of the Pentagon's reassessment of troop levels. Will political progress in Baghdad allow the Defense Department to lower U.S. force levels in the weeks ahead?

There's an unusual bi-partisan effort to get the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to release information about certain Superfund cleanup sites, pieces of land that have been deemed too toxic for development. The EPA says sharing some information about the sites could discourage companies from cleaning up their environmental messes.