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Susan Stamberg, one of NPR's "founding mothers," pays a visit to a painting of another famous mother at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: James Abbott McNeill Whistler's 1871 oil on canvas.

The National Endowment for the Arts has released a study on reading trends in the U.S. The study shows "startling declines" in "how much and how well" Americans are reading.

News broke Thursday that in 2005, the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes made three years earlier that showed harsh interrogation techniques. Intelligence committee members from both parties say they weren't told about the tapes or about plans to destroy them.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has led his party to a landslide victory in parliamentary elections. But opposition groups say voter fraud was widespread. They accuse the authorities of rigging the vote to let Putin retain power after his presidential term ends.

The Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday to decide whether prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to challenge their detention in court, using the constitutionally guaranteed procedure called a writ of habeas corpus.

The new National Intelligence Estimate is raising questions about what the White House knew — and when. The estimate judged that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. President Bush has recently portrayed Iran as a nuclear threat and pressed for international sanctions.

CIA Director Michael Hayden testifies today before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the videotaping of the agency's interrogations of detainees. Those tapes were subsequently destroyed, and members of Congress from both parties hope to use the closed door session to find out why.

Melissa Block talks with Tom Goldman about reaction to the Mitchell report on performance-enhancing drug use among Major League Baseball players, including comments from baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Donald Fehr, director of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Some of Major League Baseball's prominent active and former players will be linked to the use of banned performance-enhancing drugs. They will be named in a 300-page report based on former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's investigation on doping in baseball.

A car bomb attack kills Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, and at least two others. The target of the attack, Hajj, a top Maronite Catholic in the command, was considered a leading candidate to succeed the head of the military, Gen. Michel Suleiman, if Suleiman is elected president.