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From member station WBGO Andrew Meyer reports that five police officers in Orange, New Jersey have been found guilty of civil rights violations in the beating and pepper-spraying of a man wrongly suspected of killing a officer.

NPR's Mary Ann Akers reports that the Bridgestone/Firestone company is blaming a faulty tire design and manufacturing processes at an Illinois factory for defective tires linked to 148 traffic deaths. After a four-month investigation, the tire maker cited the design of the 15-inch ATX tires and the unique way the rubber was processed at its Decatur, Illinois, plant. But the report also puts some blame on the Ford Explorer. Many of the accidents involved Explorers fitted with the Firestone tires. The report says Ford's recommended pressure for the tires was too low.

NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on the largest study to date on cell phones and the risk of cancer. Researchers from the National Cancer Institute looked at the risk of brain cancers among people who were regular users of cell-phones for an average of about three years. They found no evidence that regular users had a higher rate of brain cancer - but the scientists say some of the findings are troublesome enough to warrant further research. The study appears in tomorrow's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Robert talks with opera singer Renee Fleming about her CD called simply, Renee Fleming. She's put together fourteen well-known arias written by Puccini, Bizet, Massenet and Verdi among others. (Decca Record Company, 2000)

Eighty-percent of the world's poinsettias are grown at one ranch in Encinitas, California. Noah talks with Paul Ecke III -- CEO of Paul Ecke Ranch -- about the history and breeding of the popular holiday flower. The Ecke family has grown the tropical American shrub for ninety years.

Ann McBride Norton sends us an audio postcard from China. It's from the Yunnan province, where she encounters the last of the Dongbas, priests for the ancient animist religion of the Naxi people, an ethnic minority living in the Yunnan. There are only two men left. Both are in their 80s and know the pictographic language of the Naxi culture. They spend their days translating the language, and are looking to train students so as to preserve the language after they die.

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports from Baghdad that cracks are appearing in the decade-old United Nations embargo against Iraq. Iraqi officials seem increasingly confident that the crippling sanctions will soon be a thing of the past.

Noah talks to Enrique Guevara who is in charge of monitoring Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano. The volcano spewed molten rock for two hours early on Tuesday in its second overnight eruption. Authorities want to evacuate nearly 50,000 residents surrounding the mountain. Guevara is with the National Disaster Prevention Center. No one has been hurt by the eruptions, which is not far from Mexico City.

NPR's Debbie Elliott reports that Exxon Mobil Corporation has been ordered to pay the state of Alabama nearly 3-and-a-half billion dollars in punitive damages. An Alabama circuit court jury found the company had deliberately underpaid on its natural gas leases off the Alabama coast.

NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports that Eva Cassidy a Washington, D.C., singer who died two years ago, has since become something of a star in Britain and a cult favorite in the United States.