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NPR's Mara Liasson reports on the considerations being made by the Bush administration as it prepares to weigh in on the Supreme Court affirmative action case. The White House worked hard to limit fallout over the Trent Lott incident, and the decision to bring back the Judge Pickering nomination and join the white plaintiffs in the court case indicate that the administration feels the Lott controversy is behind them.

NPR's Andy Bowers reports that naturalist John Muir is back. Or so it seems. A man who has played Muir on stage for decades has just become a California county supervisor representing the Yosemite Valley... where he plans to take up Muir's environmentalist causes against a slate of property rights advocates.

In the new film About Schmidt, Kathy Bates plays Roberta Hertzel -- an aging hippie and free spirit. Jack Nicholson plays the repressed insurance salesman Warren Schmidt. In one scene Bates strips nude in front of Nicholson. It's the scene everyone is talking about. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Kathy Bates about the scene and about her career in film.

Satirist Harry Shearer reflected on the apparently deteriorating standards of television networks (witness tonight's reality show, Man versus Beast) and movie studios (the upcoming Dumb and Dumberer, for example), and decided there's still a way to go in the "race to the bottom."

NPR's Don Gonyea reports that the Bush administration will weigh in on a critical affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court. The case involves a suit brought against the University of Michigan and its law school by white students who oppose the university's policy that gives minority students an advantage in applying for admission. The Bush administration is prepard to argue on behalf of the white plaintiffs.

The Supreme Court upholds a 20-year copyright extension passed by Congress in 1998. An Internet publisher challenged the extension, which lengthens copyrights to 70 years after the creator's death, arguing it threatened the public domain. Hear NPR's Bob Edwards and Rick Karr.

It's often hard to tell where Nicholson Baker ends, and the characters of his novels begin. NPR's Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr profiles the author, who has a reputation for finding magic in the everyday moments of ordinary lives. Listen to Baker read two excerpts from his latest novel, A Box of Matches.

Michele Norris talks with NPR's Julie Rovner about today's arguments before the Supreme Court on the Family and Medical Leave Act. At issue is whether the law applies to state employees. States -- as they have in other cases in recent years -- argue the Constitution forbids the federal government from imposing certain worker protection measures on them.

A new study in The Journal of the American Medical Association supports the "gateway drug theory," which states that early marijuana use increases the likelihood of using other drugs or becoming dependent on drugs or alcohol. NPR's Vicky Que reports.

In space, one cannot hear sounds. But a new musical work -- commissioned by NASA -- is based on radio waves gathered from the far reaches of the solar system. For Morning Edition, Gayane Torosyan reports on Sun Rings, composed by Terry Riley and performed by the Kronos Quartet. The work includes sounds collected over 40 years by University of Iowa physicist Don Gurnett.