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The American Red Cross unveils a series of corporate-governance changes, responding to stinging criticism about how the agency dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The changes include cutting the size of the board by more than half and explicitly delegating responsibility for day-to-day operations to the Red Cross' full-time professional management.

Seven Russian sailors remain trapped in a mini-submarine below the Pacific Ocean. Planes carrying robotic undersea vehicles from the United States and Great Britain landed in Russia's Far East on Saturday to aid in the rescue.

Iraqi forces loyal to the Shiite-led government were responsible for the recent abduction of about 50 employees from a security company; almost 20 of those abducted have been killed. Sunni political leaders have repeatedly accused the Shiite-led Ministry of the Interior of kidnapping and killing Sunni Arabs.

Many Louisiana business owners say they're not getting a fair share of disaster relief contracts from the federal government, despite the vast rebuilding needed in the region after Hurricane Katrina. Only a tiny proportion of Federal Emergency Management Agency recovery contracts has gone to Louisiana firms.

The paths of retired Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and disgraced lobbyist Jack Ambramoff intersect not just in Washington, D.C., but in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a chain of 17 small islands in the North Pacific.

Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad was disrupted when a witness wore a lapel pin with the image of the Kurdish flag instead of Iraq's banner. The flag issue has taken on greater importance in Iraq since Sept. 1. That's when Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's Kurdish region, banned the flying of the Iraqi flag at government buildings.

Hurricane Katrina ruined an estimated two-thirds of Louisiana's oyster harvest. Losses over the next few years could approach $1 billion. Mike Voisin, CEO of Motivatit Seafoods in Houma, La., says Rita may further disrupt output.

Jacki Lyden remembers Pulitzer-prize winning novelist Norman Mailer, who died Saturday at the age of 84. We hear excerpts from NPR interviews with Mailer. And we speak with Jimmy Breslin, the long-time newspaper columnist who was Mailer's running-mate when the author ran unsuccessfully for New York mayor in 1969.

Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says that locals in an area about 35 miles north of Baghdad tipped off the government to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's location several weeks ago. That information was then passed along to U.S. officials, who used it to kill Zarqawi and seven associates with an airstrike Wednesday.

As it winds its way to the South China Sea, the Mekong River runs along Myanmar's remote and often troubled Shan state. The repressive military government in Yangon controls parts of the state, while ethnic militias and warlords rule the others.