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NPR's Madeleine Brand talks to Tess Vigeland of Marketplace about the latest turn in the WorldCom accounting scandal. Ten former WorldCom board members reportedly have agreed to pay millions of dollars out of their own pockets to settle some pending lawsuits.

President Bush's plan to allow private accounts for Social Security may send a lot of business to Wall Street; but lobbyists for reform say the returns for financial firms are not necessarily so great. NPR's Peter Overby reports.

Former Worldcom chief Bernard Ebbers is indicted on charges that he participated in an $11 billion accounting fraud at the company. In the same investigation, former Worldcom chief finance officer Scott Sullivan pleads guilty and will cooperate with federal prosecutors. Ebbers and Sullivan are charged with securities fraud and conspiracy. NPR's Robert Smith reports.

NPR's Laura Sydell reports that the war in Iraq has generated increased interest in blogs, short for web logs. Blogging is the web-based practice of keeping an ever-updated personal account of some subject. Bloggers have become archivists, culling information they feel is not being presented in mainstream media and providing links to foreign news sources.

Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee emphasized his opinion that a breakdown in military command led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Some senators are wondering how high up accountability should go. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.

Baseball season has begun, but commentator Kevin Murphy isn't one to sit under a hot days sun in a stadium watching baseball. He'd rather be at home watching a movie about baseball. He recommends two in particular: the documentary The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg and 61*, the fictionalized account of the record-breaking home run season of slugger Roger Maris.

Alan Cheuse reviews A Hole in Texas by 88-year-old Herman Wouk, a fictional account of a scientist involved with the Texas-based Superconducting Super Collider project. Set in the 1990s the novel has both Hollywood and Congress woven into its plot.

The intricacies of accounting fraud can be confusing, if not dull. But not always. New York Times writer Kurt Eichenwald's new book on corporate deceit and betrayal in the Enron scandal, Conspiracy of Fools, is full of riveting detail. He tells Jennifer Ludden about the reporting process.

British historian David Cesarani's new book, Major Farran's Hat, is a nonfiction account of the final days of the British mandate in Palestine.

NPR's Margo Adler reports that Swiss banking authorities and officials from several Jewish organizations signed an agreement last week that may provide a full accounting of funds deposited in Swiss banks by European Jews in the years before the Holocaust. Holocaust survivors and families of holocaust victims have not been able to trace the funds until now due to the secrecy laws governing Swiss banks.