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The largest cemetery in the Arab world is located in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf. The cemetery surrounds the Shrine of Imam Ali. It is a sacred site for all Shiites, and many of them bring relatives to be buried there. Hundreds of thousands of tombstones stretch as far as the eye can see. Locals call the cemetery the "Valley of Peace," but it has been the scene of violence as well. When the Shia uprising of 1991 began to collapse, many of the rebels fled to the cemetery, where they were brutally killed by Saddam Hussein's forces. Thousands of other Shiites died as a result of Saddam's repression, and many of them also lie in the cemetery. And thousands of those who died in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war are buried there as well. The cemetery grew to eight times its previous size during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Kate Seelye reports.

NPR Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg talks to Ashton Smith, one of Hollywood's most popular voice actors. Smith records promos for upcoming movies and television shows, and makes a pretty good living doing it.

In December 1903, the Wright brothers gave wing to the idea that man could fly. Aviation has come along way in the past century, but some pilots still prefer to take to the skies in ultralight planes not much bigger than the one used in the original flight at Kitty Hawk. Hal Cannon of the Western Folklife Center profiles maverick ultralight pilot Arty Trost.

NPR's Anne Garrels in Baghdad reports on the Mukhtar, or mayor, of one district of the Iraqi capital, appointed by Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The Mukhtar denies that he acted as Saddam's spy in the neighborhood, and says he was only responsible for humanitarian issues. But many in the neighborhood dispute that assertion.

The concept of "home economics" covers a lot of territory: It encompasses how we cook, eat, clean, make clothing and furniture, raise children -- pretty much everything involved with maintaining a home. NPR's Robert Siegel talks with the co-creator of a huge online archive of more than 1,500 books on the subject.

The Dutch parliament agrees to send 1,100 soldiers to an Iraqi province. The Green and Socialist parties oppose the deployment, as did a part of the Labor party, which said the war in Iraq is still ongoing and the Netherlands should stay out of it. Gregory Crouch reports.

Guest host Jacki Lyden is joined by Randy Cohen, writer of "The Ethicist" column in The New York Times Magazine. This week, they discuss the case of a woman whose former husband is demanding that she refund alimony he paid out to her in excess of the amount she was due.

In Part III of a series on how people in other countries view America since the war on terrorism, NPR's Steve Inskeep talks to Josef Joffe, editor of the German newspaper, Die Zeit, in Hamburg. NPR's Renee Montagne talks to Francois Delahaye, general manager of the Plaza Athenee, a luxury hotel in Paris.

In some parts of the country, it wouldn't be summer without that fried dough treat, funnel cake. And for one man, who's known in some circles as the Funnel Cake King, they've helped make the American Dream come true. Frank Wilmer, a.k.a. Apple Frankie, talks with NPR's Vikki Valentine about his career in the funnel cake business.

A growing number of girls under 18 are being arrested for violent crimes. That's led to the perception that girls have become much more violent in recent decades. But as NPR's Jon Hamilton reports in Part Three of the series Girls and the Juvenile Justice System, experts on juvenile crime have another theory. Listen to previous reports in the series.