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Host Robert Siegel talks with NPR's Richard Harris about today's news conferences on the space shuttle Columbia recovery and investigation.

The White House proposes major changes to encourage individuals to save more money toward retirement. The plan would replace Individual Retirement Accounts with personal-savings accounts featuring higher allowable contributions. Critics say the proposals would increase federal deficits. NPR's Kathleen Schalch reports.

Jazz percussionist Mongo Santamaria dies on Feb. 1 at 85. Santamaria scored a Top-10 hit with his version of Herbie Hancock's jazz-funk classic "Watermelon Man" in 1963. He also wrote the song "Afro Blue," later performed and made famous by John Coltrane. NPR's Elizabeth Blair has a remembrance.

President Bush sends Congress a 2004 budget totaling $2.23 trillion, with the largest increases going to defense and homeland security. The budget assumes a new round of tax cuts, but doesn't account for a possible Iraq war. The proposal also includes the largest deficit in America's history -- more than $300 billion. NPR's Don Gonyea reports.

Robert talks with William Greider, national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine, about the economics of President Bush's budget proposal.

NPR's Eric Niiler reports on the process of identifying the remains of the seven astronauts aboard the Columbia space shuttle. NASA will identify the bodies using dental records, blood type, fingerprints and, perhaps, DNA.

Thousands of doctors walked off the job in New Jersey today. Nancy Solomon reports the doctors are protesting the escalating cost of malpractice insurance. The doctors and the insurance industry are calling for a cap on damages paid to patients who sue over shoddy treatment.

Host Bob Edwards talks with Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY), chairman of the House Science Committee. He will chair the House investigation into the shuttle Columbia disaster.

The large NASA community around the Johnson Space Center is coming together in its grief over the loss of the shuttle Columbia astronauts. NPR's John Burnett reports.

In state elections, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Social Democrats suffer their worst defeat in more than 50 years. NPR's Emily Harris reports.