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Forty years ago, Allan Sherman topped the pop charts by replacing the lyrics of folk songs with satires of Jewish American life. And in doing that, he offered a perfect snapshot of what it meant to assimilate.

The groundbreaking rock band Cream he will receive a 2006 Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award next week. Eric Clapton was the group's guitarist. To many in music, Eric Clapton is at or near the top of any list of the greatest guitar players in rock history.

The world mourns Betty Friedan, who died Saturday at 85, as the author of The Feminine Mystique and a catalyst for the modern women's movement. Kitty Eisele first knew her as "Aunt Betty." She offers a remembrance of a family friend.

For 100 years, sufferers of leprosy were banished to Molokai, an untamed Hawaiian island. A new book chronicles how paranoia forced thousands of people to live in exile.

The White House Conference on Aging is meeting in Washington this week. But President Bush is skipping the conference -- the first president not to address delegates in the event's 50-year history. Instead, he took his message on Medicare to a select, private group of senior citizens.

Peasants relocated to make room for a reservoir in northern China's Hebei province claim local leaders pocketed more than $7 million in compensation funds owed to them. Those who tried to organize a recall vote were bribed, beaten or jailed into submission. The case typifies recent rural protests.

In his Nobel Prize speech Wednesday, British playwright Harold Pinter delivered a scathing critique of U.S. and British foreign policy. Some reviews of his speech praised it for its dramatic force, while others derided it as childish and uninformed. We hear two excerpts from that speech.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court oversees surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists. Its power has grown since the passage of the Patriot Act. Critics worry about the secrecy that surrounds the proceedings, but FBI agents say undue concern about civil liberties hinders surveillance.

President Bush gave his third of four planned speeches Tuesday in a campaign to win support for the U.S. effort in Iraq. Responding to a question about the number of Iraqi casualties, President Bush said as many as 30,000 Iraqis have died since the invasion. Steve Inskeep talks to Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

In a land where the ground is always frozen, one creature has nourished man both physically and spiritually. Anthropologist Piers Vitebsky discusses The Reindeer People, his book about the Eveny herders of Siberia.