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Afghan President Hamid Karzai pledged Thursday to prosecute corrupt officials, and said the country would control it own security within five years. Karzai's comments came in an inauguration speech that kicked off his second term of office amid a growing Taliban insurgency and a cloud of corruption allegations.

Studies show that testing women in their 40s could save a small percentage of lives. But to some public health officials, it isn't worth the possible harm the excess testing causes. Cancer survivors and advocacy groups say the screening tool isn't perfect, but it's worth the risk.

A federal judge ruled that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was responsible for some of the flooding during Hurricane Katrina, and ordered the government to pay more than $700,000 to five plaintiffs. Mark Schleifstein, a reporter at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, says of the 470,000 people who filed claims, about 100,000 are in the two areas where this lawsuit appears to have set a precedent. They will, he says, be able to go back to the court and ask for the case to be turned into a class action.

The Senate needs 60 votes to bring its health care bill to the floor. To round up those votes, the bill unveiled Wednesday costs less than the House version, and delays the effective date for many provisions to 2014. Republicans are denouncing the cost cuts as mere gimmicks. Will those measures be enough to persuade wavering Democrats to vote at least to bring the bill up?

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended Thursday the administration's handling of the financial crisis, as he again urged Congress to pass a regulatory overhaul that has been months in the making. Geithner faced tough questioning on the bailout of insurance giant AIG and Wall Street bonuses. Republican Congressman Kevin Brady even demanded Geithner's resignation.

The Senate version of the health care bill includes a public option, which would let individuals who don't get insurance on the job and small businesses choose a government-sponsored plan. During this year's health care debate, NPR has used Howard County, Md., as its sounding board. Vic Broccolino, president and CEO of Howard County General Hospital, and Mark Applestein, a urologist and president of the hospital's professional staff, offer their take on the public option. Neither sees the public option as a problem.

Recommendations from an independent panel that most women don't need mammograms in their 40s, and should get one every two years starting at 50 have spurred intense debate. The recommendation is contrary to the American Cancer Society's long-standing position that women should get annual mammograms starting at age 40. Dr. Therese Bevers, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Center at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Barron Lerner, author of Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America, offer their insight.

Judith Fox's new book of photographs is an intimate portrait of a loved one's submergence into Alzheimer's. I Still Do is a chronicle of her husband's journey with the disease.

With the Latino population booming in Suffolk County, N.Y., so is anti-immigrant sentiment. Illegal immigrants see a rise in the kind of violence that took Rosario Lucero's son, but often won't report it for fear of the police and deportation. Now the Justice Department is probing whether local police are turning a blind eye.

Documents obtained by NPR show that psychiatrists at Walter Reed Army Medical Center put their concerns about the accused Fort Hood shooter in writing. Two years ago, a top official there wrote an evaluation that harshly criticized Maj. Nidal Hasan's incompetence and unprofessional behavior.