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Creating a nest egg is considered key for people trying to beat poverty. An experimental program called IDAs -- individual development accounts -- helps low-income people save money. The program matches savings twice -- up to $2,000 -- by the federal government and a community- based non-profit. From San Francisco member station KALW, and New California Media, Holly Kernan reports.

Comedian and actor Andy Richter's new sitcom is Andy Barker, P.I. Richter plays an accountant who is mistaken for the detective who formerly occupied the office he is renting. He reluctantly takes on the role of private investigator and discovers he likes it.

The Multnomah County sheriff's office got a call that a big cat with spots was loose. The zoo said all cheetahs were accounted for. Deputies found a large stuffed animal, a cheetah, sitting on a log.

An internal Justice Department investigation has concluded that the controversial U.S. attorney firings of 2006 were of a partisan political nature. One of the seven fired attorneys, Iglesias discusses his book, In Justice, an insider's account of the affair.

The modern Bible is the product of translations and interpretations that span centuries. But a true understanding of its meaning should take into account its origins in Jewish culture, according to biblical scholar Marc Zvi Brettler, author of How to Read the Bible.

He spent a year reading the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica and writing The Know-It-All, an account of what he learned. Now he's accomplished another annually retentive feat: The Year of Living Biblically chronicles A.J. Jacobs' attempt to follow every rule in the Bible.

Isabel Allende's novel, Ines of My Soul, is a fictionalized account of the life of Ines Suarez, a seamstress who helped found Chile. The story led Allende to empathize with both sides of a centuries-old conflict.

Sandy Tolan talks about his book The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew and the Heart of the Middle East. The account grew out of a 1998 NPR documentary in which Tolan reported on a friendship between a Palestinian man and an Israeli woman that served as an example of the region's fragile history.

Commentator Kristine Holmgren says that she is concerned about the effect that the new welfare reform bill will have on the poor families at her church and around the country. She says the bill's supporters, who assume that private charities will increase services to offset welfare cuts, haven't taken into account one important factor. After 10 years of working with the poor, Holmgren says, she has learned that the poor are proud -- maybe too proud to ask for help from people in their communities, whom they have to face every day.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is probing the alleged unprovoked killings of 24 civilians last November by U.S. Marines in the insurgent hotbed of Haditha, Iraq. According to news accounts, the killings were in retaliation for the death of Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, Jr.