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Drugmakers spend billions of dollars each year trying to persuade doctors to prescribe their medicines. One company currently is in federal court, charged with illegally marketing its drug Neurontin for uses not approved by the FDA. And a family in Minnesota is asking why doctors prescribed the epilepsy drug to treat their son Dustin for manic-depression. NPR's Snigdha Prakash reports.

NPR's Robert Siegel talks with Tom Juravich, professor of labor studies and director of the Labor Center, at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst about rising insurance costs nationwide, and employees shouldering more of the costs.

NPR's Sarah McCammon talks with Kristin Henning of Georgetown University on why Black children are more likely to be handled forcibly by police.

The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on the powers states have to regulate the managed health-care industry. A Kentucky law, seeking to give consumers wider choices in selecting doctors, is being challenged by the health-care industry. Hear NPR's Julie Rovner.

A hearing begins for two U.S. military pilots who bombed a Canadian unit last year in Afghanistan, killing four and wounding eight. At issue is whether the pilots' actions merit the criminal charges they face -- or constitute a mistake that should be treated less harshly. NPR's Michele Norris talks with Derek Stoffel of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

In his book Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling, author Ross King says the artist saw his commission to paint the Sistine Chapel as an attempt by enemies to set him up for failure. NPR's Michele Norris talks to King.

NPR's Patricia Neighmond reports on a new study of Medicare patients that shows elderly patients are getting better care than they did just three years ago. On a wide range of measures, those enrolled in Medicare showed significant improvement -- everything from getting the right treatment after a heart attack to getting pneumonia and flu vaccines.

Robert Siegel talks with Ross McSwain, retired regional editor for The San Angelo Standard-Times about Sam Lewis a promoter of armadillos. Mr. Lewis has died at the age of eighty. McSwain says when Lewis took his armadillos to London, the Queen Mother was quite taken with them.

NPR's Ivan Watson reports on the Islamist movement that now controls the local government in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, along the border with Afghanistan. The new provincial government has launched a crackdown on what it terms immoral entertainment, including Western music and movies. Some in the region are comparing the government to the Taliban.

Prosecutors in Northern Virginia ask a juvenile court to rule that John Lee Malvo, 17, should be tried as an adult for the murder of FBI employee Linda Franklin. Malvo is one of two suspects in sniper-style shootings -- most in the Washington, D.C. area -- that left 13 people dead. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.