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Novelist Carol Shields won a Pulitzer Prize for her best-selling novel, The Stone Diaries. Her books are often about middle-class people leading quiet lives. Her other novels include Larrys Party, which won Britains Orange Prize, The Republic of Love and Swann: A Mystery. She also wrote a biography of Jane Austen as well as plays, poetry and story collections. In 1998 Shields was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is now in a late stage of the disease. Her new novel, Unless (Fourth Estate), was written after her diagnosis.

Political observers are closely watching the race to win the Illinois Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Peter Fitzgerald. Many see Democratic candidate Barack Obama as his party's best chance to overturn the Republican majority in the Senate. If elected, Obama would become the third African-American senator since Reconstruction. Hear NPR's David Schaper.

Retired general Wesley Clark, Sen. John Edwards and Sen. John Kerry each spend part of Monday campaigning in Tennessee, which holds its primary Tuesday. Democratic Party leaders say the contest will provide an important test of which candidate can win both urban and rural votes in a diverse -- and largely conservative -- Southern state. NPR's Adam Hochberg reports.

U.S. troops and Iraqi police raid the home and offices of the Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress party. Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-appointed governing council, condemned the raid. An Iraqi judge said it was carried out on the basis of an arrest warrant for several Iraqis wanted for unlawful detentions and other crimes. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports.

Many politicians cite the late President Ronald Reagan as a major inspiration for their career choice. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) was a high school student when he volunteered for Reagan's first campaign for California governor in the 1960s. Paul Begala became active in Democratic Party politics after hearing Reagan speak at the University of Texas in the 1970s. They share their memories with NPR's Susan Stamberg.

Sen. John McCain's iconoclastic views on immigration policy have made him an unpopular member of his own party in his home state of Arizona. But his stand comes out of long experience in the state most affected by illegal immigration, and he has managed to champion immigration reform despite Arizona GOP opposition.

CIA Director Michael Hayden testifies today before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the videotaping of the agency's interrogations of detainees. Those tapes were subsequently destroyed, and members of Congress from both parties hope to use the closed door session to find out why.

NPR's Brian Naylor reports from Capitol Hill, where President-elect George W. Bush met with congressional leaders of both parties. Bush's visit emphasized his desire to have a good working relationship with Democrats as well as Republicans, and everyone involved said the meeting was successful. But Bush has yet to convince many Republican lawmakers over the need for his $1.3 trillion tax cut. And there is still a lingering resentment among some Democrats who have questioned Bush's "legitimacy."

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports on President Clinton's third and final visit as president to Ireland. He met in Dublin with the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, Bertie Ahern. Ahern praised Clinton for his role in brokering the 1998 Good Friday peace accord for Northern Ireland. Before leaving for Belfast, President Clinton urged the parties there to overcome their differences and push the peace process forward. Catholics and Protestants in the British province are deadlocked over the issues of paramilitary disarmament and police reform. The disputes are threatening to scuttle the power-sharing government they established under the Good Friday accord.

Progressives in the Democratic party have agreed to drop two years of free community college in the latest compromise to get President Biden's spending plan through.