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Weekend Edition Saturday once again features summer readings from the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, held at the Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, Conn. The festival's 11th year continues with "The Floral Apron" by Marilyn Chin.

Journalist Jon Cohen writes for Science Magazine. He just got back from the 14th International AIDS conference where he reported on the AIDS vaccine and anti-HIV drug therapies. His article "Designer Bugs" in the July/August edition of The Atlantic Monthly is about how scientists have the ability to create synthetic viruses in the lab, like mousepox and polio, and the controversies and dangers this presents.

Pianist and singer Michael Feinstein. His repertoire is American popular song and he is a collector of vintage recordings and musical memorabilia. In the fall he plans to release a collection of radio duets by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, on his new record label Feinery. Feinstein released a new CD with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Feinstein and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Concord).

The HBO hit series Sex and the City, begins a new season July 21. We'll hear from two people involved with the show: Actress Sarah Jessica Parker was just nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series. She's been acting for most of her life, including playing Annie on Broadway, the young bimbo in L.A. Story, and a fed-up fiancee in Honeymoon in Vegas. This is her fifth season starring in Sex and the City, as Carrie, a columnist who writes about the sexual mores of New Yorkers. Terry recorded this interview with Parker live before an audience at Martha's Vineyard in July 2001.

Former fire commissioner of New York City, Thomas Von Essen. He led the department through the Sept. 11 attacks and during rescue and early recovery efforts. During the attacks, the department lost 343 men, many of them Von Essen's friends and colleagues. Von Essen stepped down as fire commissioner on December 31, 2001. He's written a new memoir with Matt Murray, Strong of Heart: Life and Death in the Fire Department of New York.

Leo Litwak is a retired San Francisco State University professor of English. He's the author of the new memoir, The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of World War II (Penguin Books). Litwak was a 19-year-old medic. One reviewer writes, "[A] book that should be given to every schoolboy in the country at the age of 13... the Medic teaches us so much, makes clear that sometimes the monsters in war are not only the enemy."

A group of scientists reported finding a six or seven million-year-old skull in Chad, Central Africa. The specimen, the oldest hominid skull ever found, will shed new light on a mysterious period in human history. The new species has been nicknamed Toumao, a name for children born before the dry season in the African desert.

Neil Young may be the hardest man in rock 'n' roll to pin down. Biographer Jimmy McDonough tried his best, but as he tells Scott Simon on Weekend Edition Saturday, he couldn't do it, even in 800-plus pages. But it sure was fun trying.

Lamya is the latest protigi of record executive Clive Davis, credited with boosting the careers of Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys and other performers. Her first solo CD, Learning From Falling, is due in stores July 30. NPR's Neda Ulaby reports on a rising -- and well-traveled -- star for Weekend Edition Saturday.

Poet Vivian Shipley reads this week at the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival in Farmington, Connecticut. We hear her poem "Ode on a Beet," published in 1999 by Hanover Press. Ms. Shipley's most recent book of poetry is When There Is No Shore, published by Word Press.