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Four years ago, Olympic speed skater Shani Davis said he was lonely being the only black man on a traditionally white team. Since then, his performance on the ice has inspired a small group of young black kids in Washington, D.C. to become competitive speed skaters.

The beginning of January marks the deadline for most college admissions applications. The Unversity of Virginia's freshmen may not be anxious to revisit this period, but they can anyway: A play called Voices of the Class, 2009 offers adaptations of their application essays.

Foreign aid can be a mixed blessing. For a while, in one small Nigerian town, the money flowed. Five years later assistance came to an end, and that left thousands of orphans to fend for themselves. NPR’s Brenda Wilson reports.

The massive, fatal waves that resulted from Sunday's powerful earthquake in Southeast India are among the most destructive tsunamis of the past 50 years. Hear NPR's Jacki Lyden and Laura Kong, director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii.

In the West, new ways are emerging to make ranching compatible with preservation. For financial incentives, ranchers keep their lands away from developers and try to preserve fragile desert landscapes.

The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a deficit of $368 billion for the current fiscal year, a $20 billion jump from its prediction last fall. The numbers do not include the additional $80 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Bush administration has said it will seek from Congress.

A new exhibit reveals some of more unusual pieces of American history contained in the vaults of the National Archives. Items include Albert Einstein's immigration papers.

A man who killed himself during a routine traffic stop reportedly left a note claiming responsibility for the murders of the husband and mother of federal judge Joan Lefkow. The man, identified as Bart Ross, had lost a legal case before before Lefkow.

A continuing look at the recovery of Marine 1st Sgt. Brad Kasal, who was shot several times in the leg in Iraq. In an effort to save the limb, he is undergoing multiple surgeries at Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

Dijanna Figueroa is one of only a few African Americans working in the specialized field of marine biology. She tells Ed Gordon how she went from the laboratory to a starring role in director James Cameron's underwater film Aliens of the Deep.