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The historic health care overhaul plan proposed by Congressional Democrats makes its way to the Senate for a test vote tonight. The sweeping legislation sets the stage for a showdown between Republicans and a fragmented Democratic majority. Sixty votes are required to advance the bill toward full debate. Host Scott Simon speaks with Sen. Dick Durbin, the majority whip of the Senate.

While President Obama weighs his options on Afghanistan, one thing is clear: The U.S. is beefing up its civilian presence there. The aid effort has been hobbled from the start, and many experts consider it a weak link in the struggle to build a stable society in the conflicted country. Deputy Secretary of State Jack Lew insists that the U.S. is now recruiting the right kind of people, but before those people head to Afghanistan, they get trained to work with the military at a base in Indiana.

For the second time in a week, a panel of medical experts has recommended that younger women be tested less frequently for cancer. The latest advice is that women can wait until 21 to have their first Pap test for cervical cancer. Many women can skip annual Pap smears after that. The guidance comes after another recommendation earlier this week that routine mammograms needn't start until age 50. NPR digital health correspondent Scott Hensley has been following the changes and joins host Scott Simon to talk about it.

The Web site Recovery.gov lists the jobs the Obama administration claims to have saved or created. In one company the government certainly did helped save a jobs, but it wasn't in manufacturing or technology.

The administration has made $45 billion available for doctors and hospital across the country to digitize medical records. This money, part of the government's stimulus plan, promises what amounts to a gold rush for major technology firms, who have begun competing to win those accounts. But Fred Schulte, senior reporter for the Huffington Post Investigative Fund, says some health care professionals wonder if the promise of electronic medical records has been exaggerated. Host Scott Simon talks to Schulte about the potential pitfalls.

Dozens of demonstrators who barricaded themselves inside a campus building at the University of California, Berkeley in a protest over fee hikes and budget cuts were removed late Friday, bringing the daylong occupation to an end, university officials said.

Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all.

Evan Ratliff eschewed his identity and picked up a new one, challenging Wired readers to find him in 30 days in a contest sponsored by the magazine. Lured by a cash prize, readers mobilized online in a mad dash to locate Ratliff — who got a little too cocksure for his own good.

Repeated deployments of troops to Iraq and Afghanistan are taking an increasing toll on military families, especially those with young children. But for Ken and Kristie Halander, it came down to a difficult choice: another long deployment to Iraq for Ken or access to the medical care their children need.

Sen. Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said there may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the alleged Fort Hood shooter before the deadly rampage.

The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday.

Narseal Batiste, who faced a maximum of 70 years in prison, was convicted in May of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida, plotting to blow up buildings and conspiracy to wage war against the U.S. Officials acknowledged the plot never got past the discussion stage and the group never acquired the means to carry it out.

Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday.

Brazil's ghettos are poverty stricken and violent. But there are people fighting against the odds to turn things around for the poor children of Rio de Janeiro. Among them is an unusual apostle: a Rio socialite who founded a school for slum-dwelling children and views education as an equalizer.

When the Marines of "America's Battalion" first arrived in Afghanistan, they were eager to get into the fight against the Taliban. Now, as they wrap up their seven-month deployment — and after the loss of a dozen comrades — they see warfare in a different light.

Based on studies, two panels of medical experts this week recommended fewer screening tests for breast and cervical cancer. But people don't always want to do what the data say to do.

News from Yemen has been dominated recently by an escalating rebellion along the border with Saudi Arabia. But the country has been making news for decades because of its severe overuse of a rapidly disappearing water supply, the result of natural and political causes.

Levies on liposuction, breast augmentation and other cosmetic procedures would generate billions of dollars to help cover the uninsured.

Raging floods engulfed northern England's Lake District on Friday, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes. In Ireland, more than 3 feet of water shut down the center of the country's second-largest city, Cork, and more than a dozen other towns and villages.

Police arrested three members of a gang in the Peruvian jungle that allegedly has been killing people and draining fat from the corpses to sell on the black market for use in cosmetics. Medical experts expressed doubt about an international black market for human fat, though it does have cosmetic applications.

The Ohio school has a 20,000-seat stadium, a $3 million indoor practice facility and a live tiger for a mascot. Massillon teams have won 22 state championships and they're in the running for another one. It's football "sunup to sundown," the head coach says.

The Senate Ethics Committee on Friday admonished Sen. Roland Burris, D-Ill., for making "inconsistent, misleading or incomplete" statements about the circumstances surrounding his appointment to the seat once held by Barack Obama. The committee didn't recommend any punishment.

Democrats will need to vote in lockstep to overcome GOP opposition in a key procedural vote to move the $848 billion measure to full debate. But it's not yet clear whether Majority Leader Harry Reid can round up enough support.

If you're a member of Costco, the nation's largest wholesale club, you may be surprised to learn that Coca-Cola's products are no longer on the shelves. The two companies are locked in a rare public dispute over the price consumers pay for beverages.

UC regents, meeting at UCLA, approved fees that will bring the average annual cost to about $10,300 — a threefold increase in a decade. In protest, University of California Berkeley students barricaded themselves in part of a campus building on Friday.

Two children and a policeman were among those killed in the blast, which wounded at least 23 others when the motorcyclist detonated the explosives in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, officials said.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has issued new guidelines for cervical cancer screening — delaying the start of Pap smears for young women and cutting back on the frequency of the tests. The guidelines were announced just days after a different group caused a furor by recommending that most women wait until they're 50 to start getting mammograms.

Thousands of University of California students converged on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles Thursday, as regents adopted a 30 percent fee hike. It's one of the latest signs of California's continuing economic crisis. UC officials say, faced with a huge deficit of their own, they have no choice but to raise the fees. Many students say they can't afford to pay more.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says she believes a health-care bill will pass, despite fierce debate over language about abortion. She tells Renee Montagne that when it comes to Afghanistan, she doesn't sense wide support among House members for a significant troop increase. Pelosi says she's asked members to give President Obama room to decide his Afghan strategy.

The Senate is conducting hearings into the recent shootings at Fort Hood — a tragedy that took place just miles from the site of a deadly 1991 attack. That episode, in which a gunman killed 23 people at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, reshaped how police, medical and psychological personnel respond to such tragedies.

One of the great mysteries about North America is what killed off woolly mammoths and other exotic animals that roamed the land after the last ice age. Ideas have ranged from a comet impact and climate change to human hunters. A study published Friday in Science Magazine provides new clues about this — cleverly deduced from samples of a fungus that grew on the animal's dung.

The country's spiraling unemployment rate continues to take a particular toll on men. The "he-cession," as it's sometimes called, has hit African-American men especially hard, increasing their unemployment rate to more than 17 percent last month.

A blown call by referees cost the luckless Irish a spot in the 2010 World Cup. Within minutes of a shootout, the ball hit the outstretched palm of French striker Thierry Henry, who guided it to his foot then passed it to a teammate for the winning overtime goal.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was able to get the bill passed while the Senate couldn't by appending it to a more popular bill. Republicans complained that the cost of the measure was not offset and also charged that it was repayment to the AMA for endorsing the Democrats' health care bill.

Army officials had said they would prohibit coverage of Palin's on-post event, saying it would turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama.

The talk-show icon will call it a wrap after 25 seasons, her production company said. A formal announcement is expected on Friday's edition of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Another man has been indicted on terrorism charges in a federal investigation into the recruitment of Minnesota Somalis to fight in Somalia.

Trade commissioner Catherine Ashton of Britain was selected as the EU's new foreign policy chief and Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy was picked for president. Their appointments suggested the need for compromise outweighed the desire for big names like former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In Los Angeles, University of California regents adopted a 30-percent increase in tuition in the face of a huge system-wide deficit. The vote came as thousands of angry students converged on the UCLA campus in protest.