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There's been a dramatic increase in recent years in malpractice lawsuits filed by pro athletes against teams and team doctors. Career-ending injuries can be financially devastating to athletes with relatively brief peak earning years. The NFL, in particular, is concerned that unless awards are curbed, good doctors will be driven away from pro sports. NPR's Tom Goldman reports.

Smallpox vaccinations begin today for medical workers in several states and Los Angeles County. The government's goal is the inoculation of 450,000 health workers against a bioterrorism attack with smallpox. But some are resisting vaccination out of safety and legal liability fears. NPR's Richard Knox reports.

Commentator Andrei Codrescu tells about his friend's dream of buying a coffee plantation in Costa Rica and making money selling beans on the Web. His friend also wants to use a certain duck that eats raw coffee beans and poops out a better bean. Of course, the friend has no money.

Tom Ridge is sworn in as the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Ridge begins his job amid complaints that homeland security remains underfunded, and that the government has done too little to secure the nation since Sept. 11. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.

NPR's Scott Simon talks with John Randall of the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin about the $41 hamburger he made last week using 24.2 pounds of ground beef. Mr. Randall says that his project was inspired by an innate Texas desire not to be outdone by a $41 Kobe beef burger now on sale at the Homestead in New York. The Texas burger was roughly the size of a manhole cover. It fed 50 people and was served on a specially baked bun.

Filmmaker Ismail Merchant, of Merchant and Ivory fame, publishes a memoir called My Passage from India. It traces his steps from star-struck youngster in India to major force in the movie world. Merchant speaks with NPR's Scott Simon.

NPR's Scott Simon talks once again with Esquire magazine editor A.J. Jacobs, who is reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica in an effort to become the world's smartest person. He's up to the letter "H" and has discovered that the single-best way to become a subject of the immense reference work is to be beheaded.

NPR's Scott Simon reflects on the seemingly bizarre possibility that Libya could chair the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

NPR's Scott Simon looks at the matchups for Sunday's Super Bowl XXXVII with Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Ron Rapoport.

The NFL's Washington Redskins ask Virginia lawmakers to exclude players injured on the field from workers' compensation benefits. The NFL Players Union is fighting the move. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.