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Food guru Mark Bittman and chef Chris Schlesinger have been at odds for years over just the right way to cook. They debate simple vs. fancy techniques for summer grilling.

Robert Siegel talks with Middle East scholar William Polk about his new book, Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation. Polk fears that this could be a period of transition from one dictator to the next in Iraq.

Iraq's national assembly gives approval to a partial list of Cabinet heads submitted by Prime Minister-elect Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds are included, with the majority of positions going to Shiites. But several key leadership posts remain vacant, including the defense and oil ministries.

Iraq's National Assembly endorses Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari's partial list of Cabinet members. But several key positions, including the ministers of defense and oil, have still not been named amid continued squabbling among the main political factions.

Joseph Horowitz, author of Classical Music in America: A History of Its Rise and Fall, talks with Robert Siegel about the past, present and future of classical music in this country.

A female member of Iraq's new parliament is assassinated in Baghdad. The killing came as Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari presented his list of some 30 Cabinet ministers for approval.

With the expiration of apparel quotas, China is expected to dominate the world T-shirt market. Many of those T-shirts are sewn in factories in and around Shanghai, China's busiest and fastest-growing city.

Installing high-quality military leaders is key if Iraq's security forces are to become effective enough to allow American troops to return home. But with rampant corruption and the constant threat of assassination, finding those commanders is proving difficult. A look at one Iraqi commander.

Mirta Ojito is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for The New York Times. Ojito and her family were part of the Mariel boatlift out of Cuba. Her new memoir is Finding Mañana: A Memoir of a Cuban Exodus. Ojito has interviewed Fidel Castro himself in researching the boatlift.

Much of the world's cotton comes from Texas, even though it's not a particularly great place to grow the crop. Big subsidies and heavy technology and R&D spending have helped the United States dominate the global cotton trade for two centuries.